Rights management and syndication of content

ABSTRACT

Systems, devices, and methods are described herein for distributing syndicated content or content with one or more distribution restrictions. In one aspect, a method may include assigning a unique ID to a plurality of content items, where the unique ID of at least one of the content items is associated with one or more property distribution restrictions. The method may further include streaming in a video stream the content items to at least two properties and monitoring the unique IDs of the plurality of content items streamed in the video stream to detect least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions. The distribution of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions may be blocked from the one or more properties concurrently with streaming the video stream, based on the one or more property distribution restrictions.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/169,502, entitled “RIGHTS MANAGEMENT AND SYNDICATION OF CONTENT” filed Jun. 1, 2015. This application also claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/169,505 entitled “BREAK STATE DETECTION IN CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS” filed Jun. 1, 2015; U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/169,506 entitled “CONTENT SEGMENTATION AND TIME RECONCILIATION” filed Jun. 1, 2015; U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/169,507 entitled “CONTENT PRESENTATION ANALYTICS AND OPTIMIZATION” filed Jun. 1, 2015; U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/169,518 entitled “INTEGRATED CONTENT AND MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM” filed Jun. 1, 2015; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/170,050 entitled “USER INTERFACE FOR CONTENT AND MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS” filed Jun. 2, 2015, the entire contents of each are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

This disclosure is directed to content management systems and particularly to systems and methods for ingesting, packaging, routing, modifying, and publishing content.

BACKGROUND Related Art

Content management systems or CMSs, are typically employed to store, organize, manage, and publish content, such as video, images, texts, audio, etc. Current CMSs are utilized for news reporting, to run websites supporting blogs, as data depositories, and for other similar content management applications. CMSs enable users to control content that is presented, for example, on one of a variety of channels such as web pages, via device specific interfaces or operating systems, such as IOS and Android, etc., in an easier way, than for example, coding the presentations manually.

However, current CMSs fail to provide integrated services to enable users to easily configure and customize presentations for a large number of web pages or properties. Current CMSs further fail to provide these services at near-live speeds, for example, in the case of managing a live broadcast such as a news event or story, and thus fail to capture a potentially large consumer base. Current CMSs also do not have the capability to divide live content into segments for publishing for different audiences and in a more directed manner. Related to this deficiency, no known current CMS provides an automatic way to control and manage digital rights of various feeds of content, such that the content can be distributed to properties in near-live time (DRM). Current CMSs additionally fail to provide viewership metrics in a useful and integrated way, for example, requiring a user to run another separate program from the CMS to view such metrics and optimize the content presentation. Accordingly, there is a need for a better content management system.

SUMMARY OF FEATURES OF THE DISCLOSURE

The described systems and methods address one or more of the deficiencies noted above with existing content management systems. The digital media integration exchange system or platform (MIX Platform) described herein may provide one or more of the following features.

Integrated System Innovations and Features

The MIX platform can provide a novel integration of live video processing and ingestion, live content and media feed ingestion, ad hoc media uploading and provisioning, property (e.g., website) configuration, content tagging, production, and publishing mechanisms in a uniquely integrated flow or process that supports comprehensive integration with live/linear video production and coverage from any source, large-scale publishing across multiple brands at scale, and set up and control of multi-channel (web, mobile, OTT, native applications, etc.) across a single unified workflow.

The described system enables users to create properties and structures of information organization for a brand (i.e. KOMO News, Hometown Live, etc.) and store these structures in a database that is not directly tied to a specific channel, content, or package.

The described system enables users to create property structure templates and to lock aspects of the settings and hierarchy in order to allow replication of standards of look and feel, organization, and to an extent, content structure across multiple properties using the same structure as a property itself.

The described system can store a full copy of each property, property template, and a known differentiation between each property and its linked property template, allowing templates to be revised and optionally re-applied to all linked properties on a one-by-one, all, or on a part-by-part basis.

The described system supports the automatic discovery of tags on all content (copy, video, audio, etc.) via semantic analysis, interpretation, and cataloging of tags as they are discovered, and can automatically infer tags based on relationships within packages to ensure all content of all kinds have topical tagging without user intervention.

The system supports a layered construct for presentation definition which enables technology agnostic creation of detailed presentation instructions that include simple “Presentation Layouts” that contain no content, instructions, or components, “Presentation Templates” that declare some settings and place some named components and component settings (these do not render without some changes usually), “Presentations” that contain layout instructions, content filters, component placements, and component settings specific to a type of property (section, screen, page, etc.), and “Presentation Instructions” that contain all of the above and the appropriate content to be injected into named components at run-time—all based on the same structure.

The system supports storing presentations outside of the database in files at the Layout, Presentation Template, and Presentation levels, and the generation and storage of known differences between a Presentation and its linked Presentation Template. This enables the full copying of these assets from one environment to another by copying the file structures alone and providing the option of updating presentations based on a common template by updating the template and re-applying differences. This also enables the system to fail at re-applying templates gracefully by leaving the old presentation in place in full and to perform template-to-presentation synchronization offline for performance reasons.

The system also supports routing of content to presentations via named filters that define full Boolean searches driven primarily by content tagging and publish time limits (but not only) wherein named filters are referenced in the presentation or presentation template and may be edited or altered offline without a change to the presentation, effectively altering the publishing process.

The system will provide all configured sections of a brand-level property for targeting in both primary targeting and syndication processes automatically, allowing explicit targeting by a user of a specific brand and location and will store this intent with every user action and save. The system uses the first filter-driven component of each section's mapped default presentation to derive which contextual tags should be implied from an explicit targeting or syndication action and will apply these tags to the package and all content added during package publishing to ensure at least a base level of contextual tagging for all content and ensure placement of content on the desired page.

The described system is able to render previews of sections and content display presentations for all target properties and channels from within the publishing interface in reaction to changes in tagging, targeting, content, and renditions of content before publication and leveraging the same code (or web-based equivalent code) that produces the final audience-side rendering, ensuring 100% fidelity with the actual end result.

The described system leverages the same rendering code to enable visual configuration of presentations (or web-based equivalent code)

Component Structure Innovations and Features

The MIX Platform can support the development of web-based rendering components that are either intended for web-based content rendering or to emulate content rendering on another device (mobile, OTT, and other applications) using a simple file structure and deployment process unique to the platform.

A single directory may house all known rendering components and contains directories for all known component type groupings, containing all named components, containing multiple historical versions of the component, which in turn contain all proprietary files that generate and support generation of the component and a resources folder that contains static files that support the component at run-time after rendering of a presentation.

A compilation and publishing process may enable a local component file structure on a local machine to be compressed, compiled, obfuscated, and deployed to a running MIX Platform to affect changes to presentations across multiple defined properties as needed.

A versioning system that enables some properties to use newer versions of an existing component while others use previously defined versions of components for use in AB testing, incremental rollouts, and rapid rollback (among other uses) wherein the code for all versions past is still present in the deployed structure.

The described system may provide the capability to replicate a deployed component set from one instance of the MIX Platform to another by simply copying the deployment directories from one instance to another.

A separate directory structure for static resources and rendering code at deployment time may enable the renderer to cache and leverage Content Distribution Networks for files that don't drive dynamic rendering of content, all maintained automatically by the compilation and deployment process above.

The described system may provide the capability to configure alternative channel versions of each web component for rendering alternative channel content wherein a directory for each channel mirrors the main component directories and provides alternative component code snippets that either conform to the rendering structure or are simply aggregations of native application code.

Tools built into the services and application may enable the MIX Platform to automatically react to changes in the component file structures at run-time and provide newly published components and component groups immediately for use in web-based presentation building interface for placement and configuration without use of any database tables or relationships at all. This means the system reacts to new code as it is published without database changes, updates, or restarts of the system and changes can take effect immediately as new code is published.

Media and Package Syndication

The MIX Platform may provide a built-in media and package syndication solution that enables incremental brand, channel, and section searches across properties to identify sets of properties for targeting content, saving property target sets as documents attached to packages and content, saving property target sets as named documents for re-use at the individual and group level, and complete separation of content-specific and reusable group definitions after application of a group to a property. In this way, packages and content may be directed to appropriate properties for publishing.

Syndication target sets (e.g., targets for the publishing of content based on a licensing arrangement) may be persisted and attached to each package. The syndication target sets may be used to derive intended topical tagging from the attached presentation configuration at each syndication target that are then attached to packages and content.

Syndication target sets may be applied to all packages, alerts (at the brand level), live streams (against targets that support a live player channel), and any other syndication-enabled content type.

Syndication target sets applied to a given package or content item may be configured to accept a global suggested placement or a target specific suggested placement location (a numbered position in the list) that will drive location of the teaser or reference object in the list of published reference objects on each target.

Syndication target sets applied to a given package or content item may be configured to accept a global promotion to “top stories” and suggested placement to force brand-wide promotion of the package on each property, where the behavior of “top stories” treatment is dictated by each property configuration and component set-up. This may enable each brand to handle promotion differently.

Stored syndication targets may not explicitly be used to route content to target properties and channels, but rather used to derive intended tagging of packages and content at time of publishing to affect the appropriate placement of content. This separation enables property organizations to change radically over time without orphaning packages or content.

Syndication target sets may persist with service-enforced and optional referential integrity enabling the record of syndication targeting to persist even after changes or removal of the intended targets.

Available syndication targets may automatically filter based on applicable level for the applicable target content type or package type as dictated by channel, property, etc.

Available syndication targets may automatically filter for each user based on their access to specific properties from an authorization perspective.

Users can open published packages and add new syndication targets to an existing package or content-level set and re-publish to expand the syndication impact without affecting previously syndicated targets.

Updates to a package or piece of content after syndication publishing may automatically update the reference objects and teaser displays on all syndication targets unless they have been explicitly tailored for one or more targets. Only altered targets will be omitted.

Updates to a package may be flagged to indicate a “push update” during re-publishing that may cause properties to re-publish the changes to all reference objects and re-position them to the intended suggested location at time of publish.

Syndication target sets may be applied to brand-wide alerts with or without links to a target media or content package to enable co-syndication of alerts.

Syndication target sets may include external publishing channels such as social-media targets, RSS feeds, and any other configured property.

Syndication target sets may automatically ensure the routing of the correct package or content rendition to each channel property based on the channel-level and rendition mappings and component code and configuration.

The system may generate an explicit mapping of content and package to target properties during publication that is derived from processing tags and filters at publication time. This mapping may have 100% or near 100% fidelity with the syndication target, but may have differences if tagging implicitly targets other properties or sections beyond explicit syndication targeting or if property structures change post syndication publishing.

A package editing interface may provide a package preview function that will read from mapped properties to enable the user to page through and/or select a specific target property based on syndication targeting and tagging processing and easily preview the actual render of the package or content on each property.

The package editing preview function may also display the render of the reference or content discovery experiences that show the reference object from the same preview, allowing for tailoring of the discovery experience across each target. Selecting the section preview and the property requests from the renderer that experience and enables editorial management of each teaser prior to publication and based on syndication targets.

Syndication targets may be reconciled as they are added to a package for source conflicts, allowing users to review and remove syndication targets or add and remove sources or content from sources to resolve conflicts.

Saved syndication target sets may be re-used to enable permissions on the target brands in the saved syndication set from the user administration and role assignment interfaces and services.

Saved syndication target sets may be re-used to enable update of properties based on changes to a template, for example, a brand template site may add a new locked section and add this section to navigation and then these changes may be targeted to multiple properties via a syndication target set.

Additional features, advantages, and embodiments of the disclosure may be set forth or apparent from consideration of the following detailed description, drawings, and claims. Moreover, it is to be understood that both the foregoing summary of the disclosure and the following detailed description are exemplary and intended to provide further explanation without limiting the scope of the disclosure as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure, are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and together with the detailed description serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. No attempt is made to show structural details of the disclosure in more detail than may be necessary for a fundamental understanding of the disclosure and the various ways in which it may be practiced. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows an example digital media integration exchange system, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 2 shows an example system architecture of the digital media integration exchange system of FIG. 1, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3C show an example data model of the system of FIG. 1, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of an example process for packaging content and associating the packaged content with a section or property, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 5 shows a block diagram of an example process for rendering a package associated with a section, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of an example system for configuring a presentation of content, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 7 shows a block diagram of an example process for building a presentation of content via configuring a component, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 8 shows a flow block diagram of an example process for creating a component with resulting effects on specific data structures of the component, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 9 shows a flow diagram of an example process of configuring a component and previewing content rendered by the component, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIGS. 10A, 10B, and 10C show a flow block diagram of an example process for publishing a component and the associated interactions with assets of the component, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIGS. 11A, 11B, and 11C show block diagrams of example processes for setting up a brand template, configuring a brand or site, and publishing content, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 12 shows a flow block diagram of an example process for creating a brand-level property, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIGS. 13A and 13B show example interfaces for editing and managing a property, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 14 shows an example interface for and configuring a theme, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 15 shows a flow block diagram of an example process for configuring a presentation, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 16 shows an example interface for editing a presentation, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 17 shows a block diagram of an example interface for editing and publishing content, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIGS. 18A and 18B show a flow block diagram of an example end to end operation of the digital media integration exchange system of FIG. 1, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example computer network or similar digital processing environment 1900 in which one or more aspects of the digital media integration exchange system of FIG. 1 may be implemented, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 20 illustrates a block diagram 2000 of the internal structure of a computing device in which one or more aspects of the digital media integration exchange system of FIG. 1 may be implemented, according to the principles of the disclosure.

FIG. 21 illustrates a process for digital rights management.

FIG. 22 provides an example of a digital rights management process.

FIG. 23 provides an example of digital rights management screen presented to the producer during syndication.

FIGS. 24A through 24J illustrate an example sequence diagram for distributing syndicated content.

FIG. 25 illustrates an example user interface that enables setting one or more GPI cloud configuration options.

FIG. 26 illustrates an example diagram of an encoder with associated states of various content.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

The embodiments of the disclosure and the various features and advantageous details thereof are explained more fully with reference to the non-limiting embodiments and examples that are described and/or illustrated in the accompanying drawings and detailed in the following description. It should be noted that the features illustrated in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale, and features of one embodiment may be employed with other embodiments as the skilled artisan would recognize, even if not explicitly stated herein. Descriptions of well-known components and processing techniques may be omitted so as to not unnecessarily obscure the embodiments of the disclosure. The examples used herein are intended merely to facilitate an understanding of ways in which the disclosure may be practiced and to further enable those of skill in the art to practice the embodiments of the disclosure. Accordingly, the examples and embodiments herein should not be construed as limiting the scope of the disclosure, which is defined solely by the appended claims and applicable law. Moreover, it is noted that like reference numerals represent similar parts throughout the several views of the drawings.

Aspects of the disclosure may be implemented in any type of computing device or combinations of computing devices, such as, e.g., a desktop computer, personal computer, a laptop/mobile computer, a personal data assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a cloud computing device such as a virtual machine or virtual instance, one or more hardware or virtual servers, and the like, with wired/wireless communications capabilities via the communication channels.

1. Digital Media Integration Exchange System Overview

Managing and controlling the seamless production of digital media assets or content and their cross-channel and cross-property distribution across a complex, interactive, digital property network may be enabled by a globally deployed, distributed system capable of unifying diverse technical solutions that are constantly evolving and changing, as described in further detail herein. These solutions include but are not limited to those that enable the seamless and integrated ingestion, processing, archival, manipulation, and packaging of live and previously recorded video content, archived and continuously updating images (e.g., photos and artwork), multi-form structured data (e.g., detailed weather reports, sports scores, and statistical analyses), general formatted text and copy, etc. The described solutions and systems provide for continuous processing, storage, production, packaging, and distribution of content in a simple, flexible, and integrated workflow. This workflow enables editors to visually manipulate user experiences, content packaging, tailoring of content package renditions, representations, and references by channel and interact with content optimization processes at scale. These features are vital to continuously adapting to the needs of an evolving media audience and to ensuring the best integrated experience across web, mobile, social, and over-the-top (OTT) or interactive large (e.g. 10 feet) television experiences, and other electronic presentation devices, formats, etc.

The techniques and systems described herein enable the management of brand-level properties that represent cross-channel content organizations supporting the simple publication of packaged media to specific audiences, assisting audiences and users, via intuitive and integrated interfaces, in the navigation and discovery of new and previously published content, and dictating the visual user experience across web, mobile, OTT, and other interactive digital channels for the same and different brands. The techniques and systems described herein may ensure a consistent brand experience from a brand look and feel, content organization, and interactive experience standpoint and may enable executive producers and editors to manage the configuration of these properties visually across channels, including the integration of live content, thus providing a competitive advantage to each brand. A brand manager can easily, using the described content manipulation and publishing system, visually structure the brand focuses or content franchises, tailor web, mobile, and other experiences visually, preview available content for each area or sub-area, and drive the publishing, preview, and audience experience seamlessly from a single interface. One or more of these features may be provided by a sophisticated user interface and system capable of managing multiple properties across a network, re-using interface components across channels, representing each in a web-based user interface for brand managers and content/media producers, and tailoring the delivery of content to the audience within the configured parameters.

In a large-scale, multi-platform network environment, the production of content encompasses multiple distributed media production facilities, studios, and television distribution platforms for over-the-air and cable and multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) linear distribution. These characteristics of content production present additional challenges to content publishing systems. The described systems may work seamlessly with the production of video and content for linear distribution, integrate with master control production systems and programming production systems, and enable digital properties to mirror and react to live and pre-produced programming to provide a complimentary content experience. To accomplish this integration, physical wiring, virtualized web services, and process integrations with the natural flow of linear media production that integrate seamlessly into the digital content production flow and the audience experiences are provided. These solutions include but are not limited to providing web-based services that tell digital producers and client systems when programming of a certain type is on-air, in commercial break, being overridden, etc. This process also involves the integration of the broadcast air-chain, closed caption information (as it streams), audio fingerprint and content recognition (e.g., speech recognition), and digital rights management into the digital production process. Innovations in this part of the system streamline the production of digital live simulcast content with television experiences, enable automated categorization, clipping, indexing, and repurposing of content in near real-time, and allow for the routing of digital content from one or more sources into the air chain or into production support systems that appear on-air (i.e., over-the-shoulder displays for news and other programming) as needed.

The described system additionally provides ample services for measuring the consumption of media by both anonymous and registered users based on content placement, time, and contextual analysis. The system measures engagement and builds aggregate profiles across user groups to enable continuous optimization for delivery of digital content to each individual or the optimization of content production (i.e. content bounties or tailoring) based on past performance and content profiling. The integration of the measurement feedback loop into the brand property set-up, advertising configuration, and content production process in short (e.g., less than 30 minutes), medium (intraday), and long-term planning activities within the system provide differentiation to a large scale media company (or a small one) using the platform by helping to increase audience, improve engagement, and reduce the time and cost required to react to shifts in audience behavior, desires, and needs.

2. System Structure

One or more aspects of the described digital media integration exchange system can be implemented on a variety of computing devices or nodes, including multiple nodes geographically distinct from each other. In some aspects, one or more servers (hardware or virtualized instances) may provide the features and functionality described herein. In some aspects, one or more features of the system may be distributed across multiple nodes, including utilizing web and virtual services, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

One example implementation of the digital media integration exchange system or MIX platform 100, configured to provide one or more of the described features, is illustrated in FIG. 1. Content of various types, size, etc., may be received or ingested by a master control 105, for example from on-the-air broadcasters (e.g., news channels or broadcasts, or other content broadcasts), or other content sources. In some cases, the content received may be previously recorded content, such as Video-on-Demand (VOD), weather reports, new stories including text and images, etc. The master control 105 may passively receive content, or may actively search for and retrieve content.

The master control 105, which may be implemented in dedicated hardware, software, or a combination thereof, may provide the received or intercepted content to an encoder or encoding system 110, which may then send the content to one or more virtual or cloud based computing resources 115. The encoder 110 may modify, organize, manage, etc., the content in any of a number of ways, as will be described in greater detail below. The encoder 110 may implement software 112 specifically configured to enable the modification of the content, as will also be described in greater detail below. In some aspects, SW 112 may include custom video processing and slicing software (VPSC) capable of transmitting slicing events and accepting MPG4 encoding changes as needed. The VPSC custom software 112 may encode meta-data in existing MPG4 formats or other formats custom to knowing start and end of program and other data. In one example, the content may be received by the encoder 110, over a serial digital interface (SDI), processed by SW 112, and subsequently sent to an one or more computing resources, such as one or more virtual or cloud resources 115. The virtual resources may include an uplink or input component 120, which may receive content and communicate the received content to a content delivery network 130 and/or one or more storage components 125. In some aspects, one or more virtual or cloud components 120, 125, 130, may be managed or implemented by a service, such as AWS 175. One or more virtual components 120, 125, 130 may communicate the content to a Media Integration Exchange (MIX) service 135, for example, which may also be provided by virtual resources, or hardware resources, such as a compute node or server 140, as illustrated.

The MIX service 135 may communicate, configure, and/or provide or host an application, such as the Storyline Application 145, that provides an interface to enable configuring, managing, modifying, and/or publishing content across one or more channels, brands, properties, etc. The application 145 may provide one or more interfaces, such as graphical user interfaces, for managing content, as will be described in greater detail below. The MIX service 135 may communicate with one or more renderers 150 to provide previews and/or publishing of configured content, for example across multiple channels, such as via one or more communication links 155 (e.g., via a wireless network, the web, etc.) to a variety of devices 160 running various operating systems and supporting various formats, languages, etc. The devices 160 may include, for example, one or more set-top boxes 160-a, tablets 160-b, personal or desktop computers 160-c, laptops 160-d, and/or mobile devices or smart phones 160-e. The MIX service 135 and/or the renderer 150 may provide content configured for the web or internet presentation by mirroring the content for other operating systems, such as Android, IOS, etc.

In some aspects, content may be communicated by the content delivery network 130, for example to/from one or more devices 160, by various communication links 165. In some aspects, the content received from the devices 160 may include live or VOD content, which may include near-live content (e.g., a recording of an event, sound, etc., by the device and subsequently uploaded to a social networking site, for example). In some cases, the content received from devices 160 may be received passively or actively, by one or more requests for content.

In some aspects, the master control 105/SW 112 operating on the encoder 110 may analyze and determine, based on the content, if the content includes live broadcast content, advertisements or secondary content, or is video on demand content. The master control 105 may indicate the results of this determination, for example via one or more signals such as a state or general purpose interface (GPI) signal 170, which may be communicated directly to the MIX service 135, or may be routed to one or more of the virtual components 120, 125, 130. The GPI signal 170 may enable the MIX service 135 to perform various features, such as providing targeted content delivery, indicating when content is live, providing flexible, near real time content with customizable advertisements, etc., the likes of which will be described in greater detail below.

3. System Architecture

The digital media integration exchange system 100 may provide a cloud-based, integrated system for the ingestion, production, packaging, indexing, publication, and optimization of digital media and advertising across digital channels encompassing two-way communication with the broadcast air chain and linear production processes. In the service of providing that integrated system and its subordinate sub-systems, system 100 may deploy a mix of hardware, firmware, and software that equate to physical and virtual appliances that facilitate these processes. The overall system deployment and logical sub-systems 200 are illustrated in FIG. 2. In order to facilitate the process of ingesting, managing, producing, and publishing content across channels and creating and managing the processes, people, and properties involved this process, the software portion of the system (cloud or virtual-based, and/or including hardware elements) provides the following high-level interfaces. The logical sub-systems 200 may be provided across various components of system 100, as will be described below.

The digital publishing system 205 controls all content and routing of content. This HUB of the digital media integration exchange system 100 enables the functionality to find, manage, create, package, publish, and syndicate media packages and alerts across all properties and channels configured using all feeds, media sources, production tools, and integrations enabled through other sub-systems. The digital publishing system 205 also enables workflow and permission management for all functions across the publishing system. In one example, the digital publishing system 205 may be implemented in the MIX service 135 and/or by one or more cloud computing resources 115.

A primary use of the MIX platform 100 is the ongoing production, packaging, and publishing of media assets for audiences across the network of multi-channel digital properties. To this end, the digital publishing system 205 provides multiple ingestion, production, packaging, and publishing solutions and integration points that include managing media and packaging as separate and discrete operations with seamless integrations between them from a systems and a process workflow standpoint. The digital publishing system 205 also provides extensible methods for adding content and media via APIs and through plug-ins that allow automatic and manually triggered ingestion of content.

The presentation management system 210 configures and enables configuration of presentations of content. The presentation management system 210 (also referred to as the property management system 210) enables all cross-channel brands and structures (hierarchies) and the actual cross channel presentations that drive the user experience. Visual interfaces associated with the presentation management system 210 enable administrators to see experiences as they are developed, with content integrated, view performance metrics at multiple levels, and tailored presentations for optimal audience impact across channels. Integrations with the digital publishing system 205 enable seamless publishing and property management activities without a disjoin, e.g., by sharing navigation and interfaces. Integrations with the presentation rendering system 215 ensure that management and actual visualization of presentations for audiences are identical, and integrates with the presentation publishing system 220 to ensure that new capabilities provided by presentation developers 268 work seamlessly in the system 200. These integrations enable display of modifications made to a presentation of content in real time. In one example, the presentation management system 210 and the presentation rendering system 215 may be implemented in the MIX service 135 and/or by one or more cloud computing resources 115.

The presentation rendering system 215 renders content and presentations. This system 215 interfaces with the digital publishing system 205 and the presentation management system 210 to deliver previews and actual views of each presentation to external audiences. The presentation management system 210 is extensible and programmable to provide automatic and visually managed versions of presentations in multiple formats based on URL pattern, for example, and can connect to any digital device 160 via web browser or native application 250. The presentation management system 210 can also provide native code snippets to client applications as needed or custom feeds to drive both behavior and content presentation.

The presentation publishing system 220 provides software development kits (SDKs) and code for publishing presentations. The presentation publishing system 220 enables development of visual layout interpreters or visual media/content display components using a Component SDK and automatically makes them available for inclusion on presentation management activities via simple file upload.

The video encoding system 225, which may be implemented on or by the encoder 110 and/or SW 112, encodes live and on-demand video. This system 225 connects directly to serial digital interface (SDI) video inputs or feeds 266 (or any valid digital video input provided) and encodes and slices video into digital formats for upload to both the live digital video delivery system 240 and the media asset manager 230. Custom firmware and software in this system 225, e.g., SW 112, detect program on-air and break state, help detect program type, and ensures consistent connectivity between the media asset manager 230 and the video delivery system 240. The video encoding system 225, installed at each video production station, also connects into the linear broadcast air-chain, allowing program signaling, automation, and manual production queues to alter digital video encoding and other behavior to flow through to digital channels seamlessly without additional manual intervention.

The media asset manager 230 stores encoded video. The media asset manager 230 provides interfaces for review of stored media both from uploaded sources and live ingestion for direct use as on-demand assets or as raw material for targeted clipping in the video production system 235. The media asset manager 230 can ingest hourly segments of live video from the video encoding system 225 automatically and make on-air programming available immediately every hour for clipping and re-distribution via digital channels. The media asset manager 230 also coordinates the upload of assets from live and external sources to cloud-based storage systems. Producers may access the media asset manager 230 in the digital publishing system 205 via its connection through the video production system 235, enabling integrated upload, search, production, and packaging from any source. The digital publishing system 205 can also ingest feeds from any source and push media into the media asset manager 210 as needed. In some aspects, media assets/content may be stored in storage 125, for example, by the media asset manager 230 and/or the video production and encoding systems 235, 225 implemented in or associated with the MIX service 135.

All media (images, animations, and video), regardless of its ingestion point flows into the media asset management interface and sub-system 230 of the MIX Platform 100. A media library associated with the media asset management system 230 is indexed by topic area, content type, and often ingestion source, providing instant access to certain processes with a single click. Media ingestion via one or more platform APIs from any source will trigger (either explicitly or implicitly) all of the indexing capabilities that help the media asset management system 230 provide a single coherent interface for storing, finding, and using media of all types.

The video production system 235 enables production of video assets. The video production system 235 provides tools and automations capable of altering video length, presentation, and indexing. Visual clipping and modification of video picture size, aspect ratio, and modification of caption and meta-data is all built into and enabled by the video production system 235, which is integrated with the media asset manager 230 for storage and retrieval of binaries and meta-data indexing information and connection to external video sources as required. The video production system 235 can also perform near-real-time video processing and indexing automations of video assets, including automatically tagging video topically via various time-indexed text sources such as transcripts and closed-caption data and automatically segmenting video by program and program segment for re-distribution, which will be described in greater detail below.

The digital video delivery system 240 delivers live and on-demand video, including streaming live video, stored video, and integrates advertising content. The video delivery system 240 proxies connections between the client video player (configuration details of which are stored or accessible via the video player library 245) and the actual streaming video assets (live or on-demand) and integrates directly with the video encoding system 225 for live delivery and with the media asset manager 230 for on-demand video delivery. The digital video delivery system 240 also manages live program on-air and break state, and interfaces with the video production system 235. In some cases, the digital video delivery system 240 a interfaces with the digital publishing system 205, to ensure presentations can react to on-air states as needed to enhance the user experience. The digital video delivery system 240 manages both server-side and client-side mid-stream ad content insertion and dictates video program return signaling via streaming manifest manipulation, simultaneously integrating with client-side player technologies to ensure an optimal video experience for the end user.

The linear routing system 265 routes digital assets to the air-chain.

The video player library 245 displays video and tailors the content presentation experience. The video player library 245 provides a set of native client-side video players across platforms that integrates with the custom digital video delivery system 240 to ensure a continuous and smooth, uninterrupted video experience. Each player buffers programming and advertising and uses server-side signaling (provided by the digital video delivery system proxy 240) to weave seamless streaming content and enhance the user with minimal delay during live programming and programmable breaks for on-demand programs. In some aspects, the video production system 235, the digital video delivery system 240, and/or the video player library 245 may be implemented in the CMS and/or one or more cloud-based computing resources 115.

Native and mobile application 250 customizes experience on various devices 160. Native applications 250 for mobile, smart TV, and set-top-box platforms (including gaming consoles) leverage the video player library 245 to integrate video in a seamless manner. They also integrate with the presentation rendering system 215 to obtain content and configuration data that drive native components to work according to visual representations in the presentation management system 210. This integration of native applications 250 with the presentation rendering system 215 (and by association the presentation publishing system 220 and the presentation management system 210) enables a seamless management and visual manipulation and publishing process that includes multi-platform, multi-screen experiences for a single brand or property, e.g., for a news broadcaster across web, mobile, and set-top-box applications.

The analytics system 255 collects behavioral data based on viewership of published content (which may be categorized to provide more tailored data), for example via various metrics such as clicks per minute (CPM). In some aspects, the analytics system 255 may integrate external systems for analytics such as Google's analytics and DFP platforms with internal analytics event detection. Digital devices 160 are fed appropriate event codes via the presentation rendering system 215 to cause native invocation of the analytics system 255, which collects event data specific to the presentation and audience at time of delivery and ensures a near-real-time feedback loop with any of the sub-systems (but particularly the content optimization system 260). The analytics system 255 also supports ingestion and processing of offline data to align with property set up and reports provision through the content optimization system 260 and customization of reports in the digital publishing system 205. New events may be defined and tracked as needed via the internal SDK or through configuration and also via name-value pair passing.

The content optimization system 260 connects content to specific audiences via initiating actions or generating advisements to producers developing presentations of content. The content optimization system 260 performs pattern recognition and learning algorithms (in a pluggable fashion) to ensure that observations and patterns or conditions may be detected to drive behaviors in the presentation rendering system 215 or the digital publishing system 205. Trends and observations are surfaced in reports and inline in presentation management 210, presentation publishing 220, and video production 235 user interfaces to enable visibility into automated publishing changes or override/actions by users during any of these processes. These observations include, but are not limited to the following:

a. Observations of historic performance of ad units b. Observations of projected sell-through rates for ad units by brand and channel c. Observations of projected revenue and electronic clicks per minute (eCPM) for ad units by brand and channel d. Observations of click-through rate (CTR) performance of specific content references and placements e. Observations of CTR performance of specific contextual tags by brand and audience f. Observations of Social Sharing activity of specific packages across or within brands and channels

In some aspects, the analytics system 255 and/or the content optimization system 260 may be implemented in the MIX service 135 and/or one or more cloud-based computing resources 115.

4. Logical Data Model

In some aspects, system 100 may be implemented using data model 300, illustrated in FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3C. It should be appreciated that data model 300 is only given by way of example, and that a variety of different data models and organization schemes are contemplated herein. Data model 300 may include various data tables 305, containing certain pieces of data that are communicated or linked to other data tables 305. The data model 300 may be organized into different sectors, such as content data 310, tagging data 335, property data 345, placement & reference data 365, and look up tables 375, for instance.

In support of the overall system, the logical data model 300 provides normalized, de-normalized, and document-based (flexible) data storage for all core services of the platform 100. Media, wherever stored (e.g., locally on server 140 or with cloud-based resources 115, such as storage 125), is referenced in the logical data model 300 as an addressable, package ready, and distributable asset. This enables all media assets of any kind to be mixed and treated the same by the system 100, wherever the actual ownership lies. The data model 300 also marries property set-up, media categorization, rendition support, and hierarchical rendering structures (maps of how properties are navigated and how content is organized as separate but related structures), content and media tagging and categorization, and channel and content renditions with specific attributes mapped loosely to channels. The feed architecture leverages this flexible data model to enable the MIX Platform 100 to ingest and consume any syndication format, normalize content in real-time, and provide a uniform interface to content for repackaging, repurposing, and cross-channel syndication as needed.

4a. Content Data

Content data 325 may be used to refer to and include various data tables associated with content, including rendition, image, video, alert, weather, external references, package, copy, external reference, and content information. Content data 325 may include various pieces of information, data, package, media, including external references to documents that might be processed, cataloged, indexed, packaged, produced, and then shown to users of the web application or an audience-facing channel (web site, mobile app, OTT device, etc.) that inherits basic cataloging features and indexing features through content. Content table 312 may be the hub of and link to all other data generally referred to as content data 325. Content table 312 may include live streams that are currently in progress, for example, before the live stream or broadcast is finished. System 100 supports infinite content type definitions that include formatted and non-structured data (such as defined with weather) and registered content editor panels for each type of content. Adding a new panel with the correct mapping attaches the editor panel to that content type and makes the panel available to the package editor for package types that include the new content type. Content table 312 may have many versions based on saving or publishing or both, and the MIX Platform 100 can store when and by whom each content version was created and modified for auditing purposes. All packages 314 and content inherit versioning behavior appropriately in this way.

Any type of content stored in content table 312 can store name and value pairs as one or more content attributes 340, associated with tagging data 335, that represent single values or entire document structures (JSON, XML, etc.) on the fly to support complex information storage that is not pre-defined. This enables individual packages 314 to define variables that power presentations on a one-off or small batch basis or even entire documents without having to alter the overarching content structure.

In one example, if a story that has a sports score inside of it is published, the system 100 can receive inputs or selections to create an attribute called “sports-score” and add XML that contains the score on-the-fly, for example, from a user via one or more interfaces. Subsequently, a component can be configured, for example via inputs received from a producer, that detects the presence of that name-value pair and renders a box score using the XML data. This process can be performed in a relatively quick manner (e.g., a few minutes) and then re-used again and again without requiring definition of a new content type.

Packages 314 are what are displayed, for example to editors via an editing interface, in the MIX Platform 100 for producing sets of content for publishing. Packages 314 are also content and may be indexed and searched independently, and are the core type of content that can be manipulated when publishing operations are performed. Packages 314 use a default package editor in the system 100 by default, but new configured package editors (such as for weather) may be configured and mapped to packages of a specific type. Packages 314 may use or not use portions of the package meta-data in the package editor as well and may enable and disable features of package publishing via configuration of the package editor. This feature enables new types of packages 314 to be customized and deployed rapidly with customized publishing processes.

Package type 316, which is linked to package 314, defines an allowed collection of content types to serve specific needs. The configuration of a package type 316 defines what a search and list screen can and should do, where in the system 100 lists of these packages 314 should reside (e.g., which screen), what portions of the publishing process and targeting process should be enabled, what types of content and in what numbers (e.g., one, many, specific numbers, etc.), and which editors can and should be used when producing the package 314. The MIX Platform 100 reacts to configured package types 316 and makes them available as part of the seamless publishing workflow as they are developed.

Content 312 and packages 314 may support multiple renditions 318. Renditions 318 are copies of any type of content 312 (or a package 314) with specific attributes. When content is delivered to the renderer, such as renderer 150, all possible renditions of that content are made available to the renderer 150 when it renders the presentation. The presentation will select, based on channel, which renditions 318 are most appropriate for the audience and channel as needed (e.g., performed during component development). In one example, the MIX Platform 100 may automatically create renditions 318 of images at different aspect ratios and resolutions upon upload or reference. New aspect ratios and resolutions are configurable. By default, there are three of each based on industry best practices, but this set is easily configurable.

In one example, one or more image production tools (e.g., interfaces) may be provided to enable modification of a package 314 or content 312, and may be used to create and modify one or more renditions 318 of content 312 or package 314. The one or more image production tools may link and display all aspect ratios and allow crops and focal points to affect all renditions 318 simultaneously while the user watches. These production tools are built into the publishing and packaging process along with image manipulation tools so that a producer does not have to leave or exit the package editing process to alter the image. A producer may optionally un-link the rendition production tools to tailor a given rendition 318 specifically via the production tools and cropping. All of these links and results persist (e.g., are stored) when a package is closed and are saved per-package. Renditions 318 are always linked to the original image and the original rendition 318 is saved in an unaltered format or state, to ensure no degradation of the original content occurs as users manipulate the image or other content.

The MIX Platform 100 enables save and publish hooks to be associated with various content types (e.g., as interceptors in the service level code) to automatically produce renditions 318 of content 312 and packages 314. Registering a new interceptor will automatically ensure the renditions 318 are produced on save, modification, or publication (depending on configuration). The MIX Platform 100 may detect and show any renditions 318 of the package 314 in the appropriate interfaces and allow production and manipulation of those renditions 318 as needed. If renditions 318 trigger the inclusion of content 312 on other properties, a preview may display the content 312 showing up on those channels (or simulate them) directly from the publishing/preview functionality.

Alerts 320, which are linked to content 312, define short update content targeted to a specific brand property 350 and not specific section properties 352 (e.g., areas of a brand). A package 314 containing an alert is considered an alert package and tailors targeting to the brand level 350 instead of to a specific section 352. In some aspects, brand-level targeting may inform the MIX Platform 100 to make a package 314 available at render time to all renders targeted by the brand automatically. Typically, each channel render makes its own decision how to implement or respond to this instruction.

The MIX Platform 100 may connect alerts 320 and alert packages to multiple output channels optionally (and can add more) including brand-configured SMS, social media accounts, mobile push notifications, and MIX Platform internal notifications. Alerts 320 may also be automatically included as part of a package 314 by default, allowing any story, image gallery, weather report, sports score (any package), to also trigger a brand-level alert that automatically links back to the initiated story. This linked behavior may be performed during package creation, after publication, or as a link-back after a stand-alone alert gets created with the same affect. Additionally, the MIX Platform 100 ensures that all LIVE alerts for a given brand are visible, navigable, and controllable from any one alert at all times since timing and breadth of alerts in the presentation is so important. For example, web sites may display multiple alerts in the header using scrolling, but the order and number can affect how many people see them. This is critical to the publishing process and differentiating from a production standpoint.

Weather data 322, which is linked to content data 312, contains structured data that includes detailed information about temperature, air pressure, and an unlimited set of other data regarding the weather in a specific zip code or geographic location. This data may be stored in a de-normalized format that allows any number of attributes to be configured and stored over time without necessary code changes. Packages 314 of type weather include this content type and allow for the weather forecast edit panel to appear in the package editor for manipulating this data.

Copy 324, which is linked to content data 312, represents formatted or non-formatted text attached to any package 314.

Image 326, which is linked to content data 312, represents stored images stored at any URL for inclusion in packages 314 during publication. Users can search and filter for image assets either as part of selecting media for inclusion in a package 314 or from the media interface itself.

Video 328, which is linked to content data 312, includes stored digital video files available at some URL for inclusion in a package 314. Video also appears in the media management interface both outside and inside of package editing tools. Users can search and filter for video assets either as part of selecting media for inclusion in a package 314 or from the media interface itself.

Live Stream 330, which is linked to content data 312, includes one or more live video sources available for inclusion in a package 314 at a specific live streaming URL. Live streams 330 are either persistent or scheduled to begin and end. Referencing live streams 330 as content allows them to be included as part of a package 314 and promoted across properties as needed. The system 100 automatically discovers live streams 330 as they are registered in the infrastructure and makes them available for routing in this way. The system 100 also automatically aggregates live streams 330 under properties based on configuration conventions that match brand-level property attributes to detected attributes on the live stream 330. This means that within moments of a live stream 330 appearing in the system 100 via physical configuration, it automatically becomes available and editable in the system for production and routing. Stated another way, by treating live streams 330 as editable and packagable content, live streams 330 can be received by system 100 and published at various properties, configured, etc., in various ways in near real time.

An external reference 334, which may be linked to content data 312, may include a link to external media on the internet not owned, controlled, or associated with the MIX Platform 100 directly.

4b. Tagging Data

Tagging data 335 may include or be associated with various information used to tag content with key words, phrases, or other identifiers. A tag 336 is a simple, categorized (dimension below) topic that content may pertain to. The process of tagging content, which will be described in greater detail below, enables storing, searching, and directing content to specific locations/properties for publishing.

The dimension data table 338, which is linked to each tag 336, declares a type for tags 336 to allow them to fit into specific sets, e.g., a tag category. Examples of dimensions 338 may include a person, place, event, topic, category, franchise, source, etc. In some aspects, dimension 338 may be linked to two separate tables, content dimension 338-a including a content-based category of classification, and topical dimension 338-b including a topic-based category or classification.

The relevance data structure 342 links tags 336 to content 312 at the package 314 and individual content item level with a weight. This enables the MIX Platform 100 to measure how related content is to a given tag (person, place, event, or topic). These relationships between content 312 and tagging data 335 are the primary driver of content discovery and filters that place content on display presentations. Tag relevance intersections between packages enable automatic calculation of relationships between packages for suggested content and related content. Tag relevances may be calculated based on the output of generalized tag detection services and stored in the tag and relevance data structures 336, 342. Tag relevances may also be overridden manually by users or re-calculated by internal processes in an ad-hoc post processing manner.

4c. Property Data

Property data 345 may include and be used to refer to data that is associated with a location for delivery of content, such as a web page, web site with multiple pages, and so on. A property 346 is the highest-level construct that designates an owned location capable of distributing or delivering content to an audience. Any conceptual place where media may be displayed is considered a property. Some or all types of property may be stored (and the relationship to child properties) in a single table that mixes relational and document based data in a way that is highly flexible with limited changes required to the data model. Property data may also be persisted solely as XML, JSON, or other document format stored either in a relational database as a large field, in a specialized no-SQL database, or in an organized file system without any material change to the system in general.

Property attributes 348, which are linked to each entry of a property 346, include name-value pairs that are a mix of pre-defined and ad-hoc information stored for the property 346. Storing the property attributes 348 separate from the property entry 346 enables the MIX Platform 100 to support multiple types of properties 346 quickly via configuration without adding new data constructs. In one example, this may be done using simple name-value key pairs (e-mail=bob@domain.com), or complete JSON or XML documents (or any other documents) that define complex data structures.

A property 346 may begin with or be pre-configured with property of type “Brand” 350 that defines the name of the content distributor. To an extent, brands 350 can be nested within each other (e.g., Sinclair Network which owns KOMO News and WBFF 45), but primarily each brand 350 starts with at least a web property and domain URL (which may be required for the renderer 150 to recognize the brand 350 when various devices ask for content and presentations). Other than name and production URL, other fields in a brand 350 are based on the type of brand during property set up. Brands 350 can actually represent multiple channels (web, mobile, OTT, etc.) each that mirror the section (or content focus/area) structure of the brand 350 on a specific known channel.

A section property 352 may be a property directly under a brand 350 or another section that defines an area of focus for the brand 350 (e.g., news, sports, popular, featured videos) or a way content or media is organized for consumption or distribution. Essentially, a section dictates the information architecture for the brand 350 at large across channels. Sections 352 have a primary presentation 358 that may instruct how content 312 should be routed and organized within a brand 350 and that the renderer 150 will use to build an actual presentation per channel.

A channel represents a way of communicating with the audience that is widely accepted. Known channels are set up in the MIX Platform 100 so that each brand 350 can tailor the experience to each channel but keep certain aspects of the brand consistent. Channel properties 356 may provide channel-specific overrides to the brand structure. A brand 350 will set up a list of sections 352. Every section property 352 and presentation 358 may have a channel property 356 that overrides behavior, provides an alternative presentation, or eliminates section properties for the given channel. This ability to conditionally override behavior on a per-channel basis lets each channel either re-use the section hierarchy from the brand 350, remove sections 352, consolidate sections 352, or provide channel-specific presentations for the content 312 on each brand 350. This hierarchical connection between the primary brand property 346 and the channel property 356 enables brand-level decisions to cascade across channels (the web site, mobile app, OTT app, etc.) by default based on the presentation rendering rules built into the renderer for each channel. Overrides can be done opportunistically on a per-section 352 or presentation 358 or channel (or all three) basis to tailor the experience, but is not needed unless a sub-optimal experience occurs on the channel.

A presentation 358 represents either a type of content display, a default behavior, or a section display for a brand 350. A presentation 358 may represent a page in a web site. Each presentation 358 belongs to or is associated with a section property 352 (either the root or a sub node) and defines the visual details for a property node. The “layout” property defines the presentation 358 and provides all instructions to the renderer 150 for actually providing the user experience. The presentation data structure 358 currently uses a well-defined JSON structure (although the format could easily change to any other format), is stored in the database and in a file structure, and defines or links to the following information:

1. The presentation template, if any, that this presentation is based upon. 2. The complete overall column and container layout intended for the presentation. a. This format supports responsive rendering in a columnar grid or not. b. It declares columns and containers with constraints as needed c. The format is open to wide interpretation based on rendering plug-ins by channel. 3. The list of named components 360 and placement inside the layout. a. This references the actual component code the renderer should use. 4. The list of named filters 362 for each component 360 that shows reference objects. 5. The set of component settings for each component 360 for customization purposes

A component 360 may include a set of code or instructions and a reference to that code for use in presentations 358. Components 360 in the MIX Platform 100 may reference code stored in the designated platform file system or remote storage. In some aspects, a component structure 360 and/or a filter 362 may not be tied or directly linked to a presentation 358 in the data model 300, as each presentation 358 may be associated with an object (e.g., a JSON object) that has instantiations of filters 362 & component 360. In some aspects, a component 360 may also reference alternative code for any channel in any language via adding variable code structures that mirror those in base web components 360 in a parallel file structure for the channel or device involved or targeted.

A filter 362 may include a named and configured complex search for packages 314 that includes a full-Boolean nested query that covers all meta-data, associated tags, and attributes of the package 314. Filters 362 are configured primarily in the query attribute with some additional fields, but can also be saved/accessed from advanced searches in the MIX Platform 100. In some aspects, advanced search queries on packages 314 via the services and the accompanying JSON document (JSON not required) are identical to the stored filter parameters 362 that power content routing to components 360. This allows named filters 362 to be created based on searches in the MIX Platform package search (showing an administrator what content is typically available) and then used to generate or power a component 360 placed on section presentation 358, for example, associated with a section property 352. This flexibility enhances the implementation and capability of the system 100 to enable filtering content in an integrated way and via one or more integrated interfaces. Named filters 362 may also be re-used across many properties 346 and or in many sections 352 (e.g., trending stories, popular stories, national news, etc.) when the filter is configured to apply to multiple sections 352.

4d. Placement & Reference Data

Placement and reference data 365 may include and be used to refer to data that is associated with references/teasers of content 312. The suggested teaser placement data structure 366 may indicate the preferred priority and placement of a package 314 on a target (primary or secondary syndicated) property 346 (usually a section 352). The system 100 may use publish data and suggested placement precedence to decide the actual order of reference objects 372 generated during publication processes.

A property content union 368 may include a representation (in some aspects, internal only representation) of all valid brands 350 and sections 352 based on publishing for known packages 314. The MIX Platform 100 may use the property content union data table 368 to prevent rendering of stories on properties 346 that should not be present, for example, based on restrictions or limitations associated with a package 314, such as an expiration date and/or time, etc. Many other large-scale content systems that cover more than one property at more than one URL may allow articles to render anywhere on any property and section simply by appending the article ID or the story title from a different URL. This is problematic from a content permission standpoint as it can lead to stories that violate source licensing considerations. In some aspects, during the publishing process (see Reference Object 372 below), the MIX Platform 100 reconciles intended and allowed section 352 and brand-level 350 mappings from all filters 362 (based on targeting and syndication) and maps them dynamically into this table.

The teaser placement structure 370 may include the actual placement of a reference object 372 on a specific component 360 of a specific presentation 358. This relationship is constantly updated as new packages 314 show up for publication.

A reference object 372 represents a specific reference to a piece of content 312 or package 314 that is both linked to that content explicitly and de-normalized for presentation in a specific context or property 346. The MIX Platform 100 enables reference objects 372 to be created and linked to any property 346 at any level. In one example, a reference object 372 may be mapped to a brand-level section property 352, and marked for display as a teaser across channels (web, mobile, etc.), with the intent of leading audiences to discover the content 312. Reference objects 372 may be easily added to include external links to external content not inside or associated with the MIX Platform 100, and/or tailored by context. By default, reference objects 372 may be created in response to filter 362 configurations that identify packages 314 for inclusion in sections 352. These queries run as agents asynchronously, discover new packages 314 as they are saved, and copy key fields from the package 314 and content 312 to automatically create multiple teasers based on meta-data, targeting, and tagging. In some examples, tagging may be the driving input in the creation of multiple teasers.

The MIX Platform 100 may also generate reference objects 372 in asynchronous processes that find packages 314 in other ways using agents. These agents may run, find a package 314, and create lists of reference objects 372 on a set interval to drive content discovery. This enables the content discovery rendering to be relatively un-intelligent and to simply obey what it finds in the list of reference objects 372 without other inputs. The configuration and use of reference objects 372 also enables a completely flexible reference object generation scheme wherein any process, using any mechanism, may find content 312 and introduce reference objects 372 into the appropriate buckets automatically without any impact (or potentially minimal) on rendering. These processes and their results are also reflected during presentation building (preview components as they are added to presentations) and content placement and preview (preview of renders during publishing and editorial teaser management), as will be described in greater detail below.

Other important aspects of the data model 300 include the globally unique identifier (GUID) data keys for all rows across objects, allowing for mobility of data and meta-data across environments with ease and the blend of structured, indexed unstructured, and document-based data across the data model.

FIG. 3C illustrates a more detailed example of the lookup tables 375 shown in FIG. 3A. Look up tables 375 may contain linked data as to ownership, location, name, and affiliation, for example, of various stations, broadcasters, etc. This information may be used to verify permissions to publish certain content on properties associated with various stations, broadcasters, etc., through a digital rights system, which will be described in greater detail below.

Subsequent sections of this application provide detailed descriptions of individual portions of the system data model 300, which may leverage MySQL or be portable to any database structure or format, and the actual behavior of the sub-systems involved.

5. System Processes

5a. Content Packaging, Presentation, and Targeting

FIG. 4 illustrates an example flow diagram of process 400 of how various data is organized and how content 490, which may be an example of or be accessed from content data structure 312, is directed to a specific section or property 465. Process 400 may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300. In some aspects, process 400 may be implemented by the digital publishing system 205, and/or other systems described in reference to FIG. 2.

Content 490 may be bundled or associated into a package 405, for example, by a broadcaster or encoder 110/SW 112, or by the digital publishing system 205, which may be implemented across one or more virtual resources 115, and/or MIX service 135. The package 405 may include one or more types of content 490, content from different sources, and so on, including, for example a copy, images, video, etc., grouped together for the purpose of publishing the content 490. The package 405 may include some or all of the data associated with a package 314 as described above in reference to FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3C. For example, the package 405 may include video received from one or more video feeds 266, encoded by the video encoding system 225, accessed by the media asset manager 230, and/or modified or produced by the video production system 235. In one specific example, the package 405 may include a news story, a staff bio, a weather forecast, etc., or combinations thereof.

The package 405 may be associated at 410 with one or more tags 415, which may include key words, phrases, etc., associated with one or more characterizations of or associated with the content 490 of package 405. The tags 415 may also include a source of the content 490, a news station or broadcaster associated with the content 490, etc. For example, the tag(s) 415 may include “News” and “the names of one or more stations the news content 490 is associated with. Associating the package 405 with one or more tags 415 at operation 410 may include linking package data 314 with one or more data structures of tagging data 335, as described above in reference to FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3C.

One or more filters 420, for example, associated with a section or property 460 such as a webpage, or a component associated with a page, may select one or more packages 405 for presentation based on the tag(s) 415 associated with each package 405 at 425. For example, a local news page component 440, such as a top or lead component, may search for packages 405 associated with tags 415 “news” and a certain broadcast station or news reporting station. One or more filters 420 may include the data stored in one or more filter data structures 362, and may be configured to select content based on comparisons of tags 415 associated with a package 405.

Upon receiving filtered packages 405, selected by one or more filters 420 at operation 425, a reference or teaser 430 may be generated at operation 435, for example for a specific location on the page. In one example, a reference 430 may include the headline, summary, teaser image, and a URL or page address to enable editors to tailor the teaser to a particular application or placement. A reference 430 may include some or all of the data associated with placement and reference data 365. Each reference 430 may be ordered and self-contained, such that each reference 430 has or is associated with content 490, URLs, and sort orders associated with a presentation. At the time of publishing, each reference 430 may inherit settings from the associated package 405. Each reference 430 may be independently adjustable or configurable in relation to the underlying package 405, such that a producer may configure custom external links, tailored teasers, and perform other editorial changes, including reordering the content of a package 405 such as to make the reference 430 simpler, shorter, etc.

Next, the reference 430 and/or package 405 may be directed to one or more components 440 at operation 445. Each of the one or more components 440 may include a piece of code or other instructions, associated with a page, property, section, etc., that is configured to render various types of content 490, including the content of package 405 and in some aspects, content of the reference 430. An example of a component 440 may include a TOP NEWS box on a home page of a website, the header, etc. Each component 440 may be associated with a presentation 450 at operation 455, which may include a collection of one or more components 440 and instructions for building a document. Each presentation 450 may further be associated with a section or property 465, such as an area of focus for a property of specific URL/different page, at operation 460. A component 440 may include some or all data associated with component data structure 360. A presentation 450 may include some or all data associated with component data structure 360. A property 460 may include some or all data associated with property data structures 345 and/or 346.

Additionally or alternatively, each package 405 may be mapped to a target 475 at operation 470 and further to a section 465 at operation 480. In some aspects, the package 405 may additionally be associated with one or more tags 415 at operation 485, for example, to enable the content 490 to be distributed to other properties, channels, etc. In some aspects, operation 485 may include determining content and/or tags 415 of that content associated with the section 465 that the package 405 was originally targeted to. Based on commonalities between the content 490 associated with property 465, tags 415 may be automatically (e.g., without direct user input) generated at operation 485. In one example, the package 405 may be mapped to a target 475, such as the LOCAL NEWS and the system 100 will automatically tag the package 405 with tags 415 “News” and the name of the local news station. In this way, packages 405 may be associated and directed to components 440, formed into presentations 450, and directed to sections or properties 465, with configured teasers or references 430 in an integrated, effective and efficient manner.

5b. Content Rendering

FIG. 5 is an example flow diagram illustrating an example process 500 of how packages 405 are rendered on sections or properties 465 in the form of presentations 450. Process 500 may incorporate one or more aspects of process 400 described above and may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300. In some aspects, process 500 may be implemented by the presentation rendering system 215 and/or the digital publishing system 205, and/or other systems described in reference to FIG. 2

The renderer 505, which may be an example of or implemented by renderer 150, may first, at operation 515, map a URL to a section 465. Next, one or more presentations 450 may be found at operation 520, for example by the section 465 based on configured criteria, by the renderer 505 based on certain instructions or criteria, etc. Once the presentation is found, the renderer 505 may iterate through searching components 440 based on data associated with the presentation 450, and fetch code associated with at least one component at operation 530. Some or all of operations 515-530 may be repeated for each section 465, presentation 450, or component 440, as needed until the section 465 or presentation 450 is completely fulfilled.

Each selected component 440 may apply one or more filters 420 at operation 535 and find packages 405, containing content 490, at operation 540. Each component 440 may be configured with certain filters 420, for example, for presenting certain content 490 associated with a presentation 450 and/or section/property 465. The component 440 may read the package 405 at operation 545 for references 430. At operation 550, the component 440 may generate one or more references/teasers, such as one or more headlines, summaries, images, URL (e.g., derived and overrideable), and/or sort orders. Next, the one or more references 430 may be added to the presentation at operation 555. Upon retrieval of packages 405 to fill out each component 440 and each presentation 450 associated with a section or property 465, the renderer 505 may render the document 510 at operation 560. In some aspects, the renderer 505 may render portions of a document 510 at different times, such as while additional content/packages 405 are being retrieved.

Process 500 may, in some aspects, include a package 405 being mapped to one or more targets 475 at operation 470, subsequently directed to one or more sections 465 at operation 480, and associated with one or more tags 415 at operation 485, as described above. This sub-process may interface with the rendering process 500, such that newly added packages 405 may be rendered based on tags 415 associated with the package 405 via targeting at operations 470, 480, and 485. In some aspects, targeting property sections 465 may infer tags 415 automatically based on tags in the primary filter of the default presentation 450 for that section. The renderer 505 may use those tags to automatically route packages 405 to new or replaced sections 465 based on those tags allowing targets 475 to disappear without truly orphaning packages.

5c. Content Presentation.

With reference to FIG. 6, an example system 600 for configuring a presentation of content 490 is shown. System 600 may incorporate one or more aspects of processes 400 and/or 500 described above and may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300.

A channel 605 may define or include a format or technology, such as the web, IOS, Android, OTT, social networking formats, and the like, suitable for publishing content 490. Each channel 605 may be associated with a channel-specific layout 610, which may include an empty visual arrangement, for example, configurable to present one or more separate instances of content 490/packages 405. A visual representation or presentation of a layout 610 is illustrated as layout 610-a, which includes various sizes and shapes of areas 615. An area 615 may define a space that is suitable for placing one or more components 440. As described above, a component 440 may include a set of instructions defining or enabling a web-ready visualization of data. Each component 440 may be linked to or associated with a component renderer 635, which may include one or more aspects of renderer 505 and/or 150. Each component renderer 635 may include or provide upon rendering, a channel specific visualization, such as for a web or iOS application. A component 440 may be associated with one or more component placements 620 in a presentation 450. Each component placement defines an instance of a component 440 in an area 615 of a presentation 450, with a specific configuration. Multiple components 440 are shown in areas 615 (e.g., associated with a component placement 620) of a layout 610 as presentation 450-a. A presentation 450, as described previously, may be channel-specific, based on a template 625, for a specific section 465 in a brand 630. A template or presentation template 625 may include a partial or macro-enabled presentation, such as example presentation template 625-a. A section 465 may include a content focus area for a brand (e.g., hierarchical). A brand 630 may include a web site, mobile web site, mobile app, social media pages, or any number of channel-specific presentations.

6. Component-Centric Approach to Content Management

6a. Component

In the service of supporting open content rendering that is both compatible with any client technology, including HTML5-based web browsers on various devices 160 (e.g., desktop computers and mobile devices, native mobile applications, and native Smart TV and/or set-top-box applications), the MIX Platform 100 may provide an open software development kit (SDK) for screen layout 610, selection of individual screen content, and media display component creation, such as components 440.

Individual pieces of code or instructions for each component 440 enable the HTML5 based rendering of each component 440 along with target content. These components 440 are driven by custom CSS, scripting resource files, and a template file that inherit data context from the rendering engine automatically. Developing and publishing components 440 involves first building the target presentation, e.g., a static web page with example content and then translating each individual portion of the presentation into a reusable rendering component 440 for HTML5. A process 800 for creating a component 440 and the resulting effects on specific data structures (e.g., the component data structure illustrated in FIG. 3A) of the component 440 is illustrated in FIG. 8, which will be described in greater detail below. Component code is used to incorporate content and information, render the target visualizations at client render time, render previews during publishing, and render content-enabled previews during visual presentation management (see below). The component SDK may also incorporate a technology agnostic format for declaring responsive page layouts that can support any client device based on a plug-in interpreter for the target client experience, to include feeds to third-party frameworks or applications as needed.

Visual components using the SDK are organized as files in a designated folder structure in a registered remote file store, such as component data structure 360. For the purposes of rendering itself, each component may consists of the following files in the following folder structure:

/components The root directory for all components on the remote file store /type-directory The type or category of component (shows up in the presentation builder, i.e. “Navigation”) /component-name The name of the specific component (i.e. Default Header) /version The version name of this component (i.e. v1.0)-all files and resource folders live here component-template This file provides the actual renderable instructions with included variables component-mapping This file maps global context data in the SDK to local variables the template file references defaultContent This file provides structured default content for testing components without real data other files and folders Any un-defined files and folders are passed through as resources for the renderer to use (the renderer ignores other files at render time, but publishing processes recognize others to affect the above) component. scss This file provides SASS information to style the component and ends up in global CSS component.jade This file is interpreted into the actual rendering template file above at publish time (the component publishing process ignores these other files, but presentation builder uses them) thumbnail.png An image for use in presentation builder to represent the component visually (small) preview.png A pixel-for-pixel rendition of the component showing what it usually looks like inline

FIG. 8 illustrates a flow block diagram of an example process 800 for creating a component 440 and the resulting effects on specific data structures (e.g., the component data structure illustrated in FIG. 3A) of the component 440. Process 800 may incorporate or touch on one or more aspects of processes 400, 500, 700 and/or 800 and/or system 600 described above and may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300.

In some aspects, the component data structure 360 may be represented and/or implemented by the component source structure 802. Structure 802 may include various directories and files that define a component 440 or component template. For the sake of brevity, only the most relevant files and directories will be described here in relation to process 800.

Process 800 may begin with a component scaffolding being generated at operation 810, for example responsive to inputs received from a developer. A component generator, for example as part of the presentation management system, 210, may create a folder structure 870 based on the archetype of the component 440, such as based on content or other information associated with the configuration of the component 440. Next, one or more variables, for example associated with a component-mapping file, may be changed (e.g., from default values) at operation 820, for example, responsive to inputs received from a developer. One or more other component files may be changed at operations 825 and 830, also responsive to inputs received from a developer or user. Next image files and javascript may be added to the component 440, e.g., to the resource folder, at operation 835, for example, responsive to inputs received from a developer. The developer may instruct the system 210 to compile the components directory at operation 840. The component compiler (which may also be implemented as part of the presentation management system 210), may then create a component template file 875, for example, by converting the jade file, at operation 845.

The component compiler may then merge all component.sass files at operation 850, into a global.css file 880. The component compiler may create a new CSS file for each property to be associated with the component 440 at operation 855. The component compiler may also minify css and javascript files and obfuscate them at operation 860. Finally, the compiler may move the files to a deployment directory structure, such as a property1.css file 885.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example process 900 of uploading a component 440 and generating a preview of content rendered by the component 440. Process 900 may incorporate or touch on one or more aspects of processes 400, 500, and/or 700 and/or system 600 described above and may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300. In one aspect, process 900 may generate a preview of the component 440 by rendering the component 440 with actual, real-time or configured content. In the case that no such content is available, however, the renderer may still render the component 440 with default data, for example, to enable meaningful previewing of the rendered component 440 before final placement/publishing. The default data file may be tailored, such that multiple default data files are created to render a closer approximation to the type of real content that is configured to be rendered by a component 440.

FIGS. 10A, 10B, and 10C illustrate a flow block diagram of an example process 1000 for publishing a component 440 and the associated interactions with data or assets of the component 440. Process 1000 may incorporate or touch on one or more aspects of processes 400, 500, 700, 800 and/or 900 and/or system 600 described above and may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300.

6b. Visual Presentation Management Via Components

Managing presentations 450 across channels occurs visually via the presentation management system 210 that may overlay the presentation rendering system 215. Components 440 developed using the SDK enable the HTML5-based renderer, which may be part of the presentation rendering system 215, to produce exact or very close approximations of the rendered experience, with appropriate content 490, as presentations 450 are built. The presentation managing system 210 inspects the rendered page and interacts with the presentation rendering system 215 and service-level endpoints to ensure the visual editing experience is a parity visual experience that adds editing capabilities and disables interactive capabilities that might interfere with the visual management of the interface.

The presentation management system or presentation builder 210, via the component publishing process, may discover published components 440 directly from the remote file store (e.g., component data structure 360) and the directory structure 805, enabling interfaces and code management processes (of any kind) to drive how the presentation management system 210 responds to code changes. A user interface (UI) or graphical user interface (GUI) for configuration of components 440, such as interface 1600 illustrated in FIG. 16 or interface 1700 illustrated in FIG. 17 and described in greater detail below, may react to changes in the structure of the presentation code.

The basic presentation builder interface 1600 may show all categories of published components 440 in the browsing interface on the right-hand side of the rendered presentation. This and the search interface leverage indexed lists of the presentation component directory structure at level 1. Navigating into the folders will display, visually, the set of available components by category with their intended thumbnails, names, and potentially their larger visual preview images (described above) to allow the administrator to see the potential visual impact of the component prior to placing it.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example process 700 for building or configuring a presentation 450 including one or more components 440. Process 700 may incorporate one or more aspects of processes 400 and/or 500 and/or system 600 described above and may be implemented by system 100 according to logical system 200 and/or data model 300.

A presentation 450 may be configured according to process 700, for example, via one or more user interfaces provided by the MIX service 135 and/or Application 145. Process 700 may begin by extracting a layout 610 from a target presentation 705 at operation 735. Next, one or more areas 615 may be configured or created at operation 740, for placement of one or more components 440. Next, one or more components 440 may be extracted for association with the target presentation 705 at operation 745. The one or more components 440 may each be tailored using a software development kit (SDK) provided by system 100. The SDK may enable embedding of various settings and data into the component 440 at operation 750. This may further include embedding theme settings 710, embedding navigation, brand-level data 715, embedding package data 720, and/or embedding reference/teaser data 725. Some or all of the data embedded using the SDK may be associated with one or more data tables (with a similar or the same naming convention) as described above in reference to FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3C.

Process 700 may continue to operation 755, where a presentation template 625 may be created from the layout 610 (which may be empty). The configured component(s) 440 may be placed in the layout areas 615 of layout 610 at operation 760. Next, the component placement(s) 620 may be configured for the presentation template 625 at operation 765. The presentation template 625 may then be associated with a section 465 at operation 770, and a presentation 450 automatically created (according to the template 625 and including components 440) at operation 775. To finish the configuration of presentation 450, each component placement 620 may be tailored for the section 465.

FIG. 15 shows a flow block diagram of an example process 1500 for configuring and rendering a presentation 450 from a template.

Once a presentation 450 is inside of the presentation builder, the system 210 may support three manipulations of the presentation 450, all of which may be performed without persisting the presentation:

1. Administrators may select and place a new component 440 into an existing container in the presentation 450 a. In this case, the renderer will return a temporary render for an individual component 440 for placement 2. Administrators may alter the configuration of an existing component 440 and change its render a. In this case, the renderer will return a temporary render for an individual component 440 for placement 3. Administrators may move an existing component 440 to a new location in the presentation 450 a. In this case, the presentation builder will do all the work client-side with no interaction

7. Brand and Property Management

The brand and property management sub-system 210 is the primary vehicle for creating and managing media organization structures and user experiences designed to deliver specific types of media and content to specific audiences. The system 210 supports a software development kit (SDK) for the creation of channel-specific (web, mobile, OTT, and any other channel technology) and mirrored web-only (to power the visual editing capabilities) rendering components, such as components 440, 635, and visual layouts that include data and brand visual configuration integrations. The setup of a brand-level property, such as 630, enables a web site to have or be associated with a hierarchical URL structure, connect to social media outlets and mobile applications specific to the brand 630 and enables brand managers to select pre-constructed visual templates, visually manipulate them, and create, user, and configure presentations for each specific area of each web site, mobile application, etc. from a single user interface (described below).

The property management system 210 is built in such a way that layout and component code may be re-used across properties 630, 465 or property templates or presentation templates 625 from a central location. In addition, entire layout, component, and configuration set-ups for a presentation 450 may be saved as a presentation template 625 for re-use within a single brand or across brands. When a presentation template 625 is applied to a specific property or section 465 (for instance a specific URL page of a web site) the presentation 450 may inherit all settings from the template 465, automatically making certain substitutions (based on configurable conventions) in the configuration and content routing set up (these behaviors are programmable and flexible), and becomes wholly independent of the template 625. This enables differentiation of a specific presentation 450 from the template 625 from which it was built and from other presentations 450 built from the same template 625.

Across brands 630, the brand theme settings, such as one or more themes 1135 (in some cases built from one or more theme templates 1130) including fonts, brand logos, style guides (all manageable visually through the brand management interface) also alter the appearance of like presentations 450. Presentation templates 625 may also have “locked” configurations and components 440 that may not be changed by an individual site 630 or presentation 450 (limiting the visual editing interface at brand management time). In some aspects, changes to shared components 440 or shared presentation templates 625 can cascade update presentations 450 and brands 630 across the network to introduce new or correct undesired functionality at scale quickly and requiring minimal input form a user, for example.

In addition to presentation templates 625, the property management system 210 provides the notion of a brand template 1120, including a full structure of sections 465 and pre-configured presentations 450 for a specific type of digital property 630 (i.e. a news property). This feature enables the new property interface or wizard to instantly create a fully functional new operating brand 630 based on a template quickly and efficiently (e.g., as quickly as Microsoft Word or a like word processing program can create a new document based on a document template). Similar to the presentation 450/presentation template 625 relationship, brand property 630 configurations are wholly independent but still related to an associated brand template 1120, allowing each brand 630 to differentiate itself structurally from the next but retaining the ability to lock certain aspects of a brand type and to cascade release new functions and/or sections 465 to like brands 630 in a single step when desired.

FIGS. 11A, 11B, and 11C show block diagrams of example processes 1100 a, 1100 b, and 1100 c for setting up a brand template, configuring a brand or site, and publishing content, respectively. Processes 1100 a, 1100 b, and 1100 c may incorporate or touch on one or more aspects of processes 400, 500, 700, 800, 900 and/or 1000 and/or system 600 described above and may be implemented by aspects of system 100, such as by the property management system 210, or other components of the logical system 200, in coordination with data model 300.

A brand template 1102, which may include a template for a news page or property, lifestyle site, etc., may be configured by process 1100 a. Process 1100 a may incorporate processes performed by system 100, for example in response to inputs received by a user of system 100, for example via one or more computing devices via application 145. A brand template 1120, or theme template 1130, once configured, may be saved to enable recreation of the template with a one click entry or minimal entries by a user, for example.

Process 1100 a may begin with a user entering information to create a brand and/or theme template 1120, 1130 at operation 1140. In some aspects, not all setting configured in the brand or theme template 1120, 1130 will be valid for all instances of publishing or presentation of the template 1120, 1130 to sites 630, such as URLs. As a result, the sites 630 presenting the templates 1120, 1130 may inherit defaults, and override some configuration details to format or fit the template 1120, 1130 to the individual site 630. Next, a hierarchy of sections/properties 465 may be added to the brand template 1120 at operation 1142. In some aspects, the each site 630 added to the brand template 1120 may inherit some settings/configurations of the brand template 1120 and override others. In some aspects, one or more sections 465 may be locked in a specific place or area 615 of the brand template 1120, to restrict editing of that section 465, for example.

Next, each section 465 associated with the brand template 1120 may be associated with a presentation template 625 at operation 1144. The one or more presentation templates 625 may each be associated with one or more components 440, which may be added and configured at operation 1146. In some cases, the brand template 1120 may enable selection of locking one or more components in a certain area 615 of a presentation 450/presentation template 625. Next, one or more filter templates 1125 and/or filters 420 may be added to one or more of the components 440 at operation 1148. A site 630, upon receiving the brand template 1120 may adapt and/or override some components 440/filters 420/filter templates 1125 associated with the brand template 1120, for example, formatting the template 1120 to fit certain characteristics or limitations of the site 630 (e.g., area, space, aspect ratio, resolution, etc.).

Process 1100 b may be used to create a new brand or site 630, and may be driven by operations of system 100 in response to inputs received from a user of system 100, for example via one or more computing devices via application 145. Process 1100 b may begin with a new brand 630 begin created from a brand template 1120 at operation 1150. In some aspects, the brand template 1120 may have been configured according to process 1100 a described above. The brand 630 may be automatically configured based on the selected configuration of the brand template 1120, with minimal user input and/or effort. In some aspects, some settings may be additional defined for the brand 630, such as associating a URL with the brand 630. A theme structure 1135 may additionally be created for association with the brand 630 at operation 1154. In some aspects, the theme 1135 may inherit settings from a theme template 1130 at operation 1152, such as basic images, colors etc. as default settings of the template 1130. It should be appreciated that any of a number of settings of the theme 1135 (e.g., inherited from the theme template 1130) may be overridden, for example, to create a custom brand or site 630 with little user input required.

Process 1100 b may continue at operation 1156, where ownership may be designated/controlled for the brand or site 630. Operation 1156 may include associating or tagging one or more owners 1115 with the brand or site 630, thus enabling control of what content and from what sources is published on the brand 630. Sections 465 and/or pages may be copied at operation 1158 and associated with or placed in the brand or site 630. Each section may be configured by copying or selecting one or more presentation templates 625 at operation 1160 and then customizing the presentation 450 from the template 625 at operation 1162 for placement in the section 465. Additionally, in the process of configuring each presentation 450, one or more components 440 may be mapped to the presentation 450 at operation 1164. In some cases, one or more components 440 may be locked in a presentation, such that modification of that particular component is not enabled (e.g., to ensure brand control and/o consistency). Each component 440 may be associated or configured with one or more filters 420 at operation 1168, for example to control the type of content that is rendered by each component 440. Selection of one or more filters 420 for a component 440 may be performed by selecting and/or adapting a filter template 1125 at operation 1166.

In one example, content 1110 may be published to one or more properties or sections 465 via process 1100 c. The one or more sections 465 may have been created or configured via process 1100 b and in some cases also via process 1100 a. Process 1100 ac may incorporate processes performed by system 100, for example in response to inputs received by a user of system 100, for example via one or more computing devices via application 145.

Process 1100 c may begin with a user 1105 requesting access/permission to one or more sites 630, for example, for the purpose of publishing and/or editing content, at operation 1170. Once granted access to one or more sites or brands 630 (e.g., upon entry of and subsequent validation of user credentials such as username and password), a user may select and add various types, lengths, etc. of content 1110 at operation 1172. The content 1110 may be packaged for publication at operation 1174 into one or more packages 405. Each package 405 may be associated with at least one primary target 475 at operation 1176. Each target 475 may map explicitly to one or more sections 465 at operation 1178. Each target 475 may imply one or more tags 415 from the section 465 settings at operation 1180, and each package 405 may then be mapped or associated with those tags 415 at operation 1182. In some aspects, additional tags 415 may be added to a package 405, for example by a user.

Each package 405 and the content 1105 associated therewith, may be associated with one or more owners 1115 at operation 1184, for example to specify/restrict where the content 1110 can be published, such according to syndication rules and permissions. In some aspects, if content 1110 is restricted from being published at certain sites 630, the system 100 may provide one or more warnings and/or may prohibit publishing of the content in or on the restricted site(s) 630. One or more filters 420 may find packages 405 based on tags 415 associated with the package 405 at operation 1186. The one or more filters 420 may be associated with other components 440, other presentations 450, other sections 465, and/or other brands or sites 630, such that the filters 420 may direct the package 405 to be published in other, non-targeted locations. In some cases, these other locations for publishing may be associated with the same brand 630 as the user 1105 or may share access rights with the user 1105 or brand 630.

Subsequently, one or more references 430 may be generated for a package 405 at operation 1188. Each generated reference may be associated with the package 405. The one or more references 430 may then be tied or linked to specific components 440 at operation 1190. In some aspects, each reference 430 may be custom tailored for each section 465, for example via inputs received from a producer.

7a. Visual Property Structure Control

Property setup/configuration and structure control is the first part of an integrated process that enables content consolidation, syndication, and integration. Creation of properties 630, or sections 465 from known property templates or presentation templates 625, customization of the structure and presentation structures (see Visual Presentation Management section below) creates a hub of known topical areas for coverage that eventually connect to the de-coupled tagging and contextual analysis infrastructure (via targeting) allowing implicit control of content and publishing and enabling content optimization. Property creation may be implemented by the property management system 210 in coordination with various structures of data model 300. Property creation may begin with basic information set up, and may also include configuration of a full property map based on the template sections, presentation set up, and filter and configurations from the template. Property configuration may be completed by enabling the user to customize the entire information structure (barring locks at the property template level).

During the creation of a new property 630, 465, the system 210 may take in a property or brand name, a basic logo representation and other configurable (at the template level) information. Important to the setup is the production URL (and the derived staging URL) where the web-based version (if applicable) will render. Once a user provides basic information to the system 210 about the template (e.g., presentation template 625) and general settings for the digital brand (e.g., 630), the information or site tree structure is created automatically, applying all default presentation templates and locking certain aspects of the continued set up.

FIG. 12 shows a flow block diagram of another example process 1200 for creating a brand-level property, such as a brand property 630. Process 1200 may incorporate or touch on one or more aspects of processes 400, 500, 700, 800, 900 and/or 1000 and/or system 600 described above and may be implemented by aspects of system 100, such as by the property management system 210, or other components of the logical system 200, in coordination with data model 300.

FIG. 13A shows an example interface 1300 a for editing a property, while FIG. 13B shows an example interface 1300 b for managing a property.

7b. Visual Theme Configuration

In some aspects, the brand and property management system 210 may provide a visual theme editor that enables a brand administrator or other user to visually control the style guide for a brand and immediately preview the theme in action. An example theme editing interface 1400 is illustrated in FIG. 14. Changes to or configuration of the brand-level theme settings, such as to a theme 1135 or a theme template 1135, may include configuration of logo imagery, color selection, and font-styles. These settings may be received, for example from a user, and the system 210 may display the changes on the property 465/brand 630 as they are entered (e.g., visually alongside examples in the visual style guide for the brand 630, generating a visual preview of each property 465 as the brand 630 is tailored). Theme changes are connected to property wide preview functionality that may be identical or near-identical to the property or presentation rendering system 215, and/or presentation publishing system 220. New theme settings may be added at the theme 1135 or theme template 1130 level and may then become addressable in the layout (e.g., 610) and component SDK and visually editable in the theme builder interface 1400. This integration between the component SDK, the theme manager interface 1400, the presentation management service or builder 210, the presentation rendering service 215, and the presentation publishing system 220 system (all of which share the presentation rendering system as a common mediator) provide an efficient and intuitive platform for building presentations of content and customizing for various properties or websites.

During property creation, the theme 1135 may be bootstrapped from the template 1130 as described above and can be changed visually with small style-guide based previews. These borrow from actual SDK-based rendering components (e.g., 440, 635) that leverage the target theme elements and have been flagged during development as representative of certain key elements of the theme 1135. Developers can define new areas of a theme 1135 for configurability by declaring them in the SDK or through the one or more user interfaces, such as interfaces 1300 a, 1300 b, and/or 1400, which may be provided by the MIX service 135 implementing the above described sub-systems of logical system 200. The continued round-trip relationship between the development, publishing, rendering, previewing, and visual management aspects of the system 100 enable the system 100 to support a more seamless brand management and publishing experience.

8. Mix Platform Application Interface

FIG. 17 shows a block diagram of an example interface 1700 for editing and publishing content. Interface 1700 may provide general flexibility and extensibility as configured property types, media types, and feeds grow. The captured map or interface 1700, which is an example implementation, illustrates a method for enabling publishing and property management in an integrated process as described. It should be appreciated that interface 1700 may be provided by, for example, by the MIX service 135 of FIG. 1, and/or may be more specifically provided by the one or more sub-systems of system 200, such as the presentation management system 210, the presentation publishing system 220, and/or other aspects of system 200. Many of the features described above may be provided by, through, or in association with interface 1700. Different components or aspects of interface 1700, which may include navigation screens, editing screens, plug-in or tab components, dialog windows, and panel or side-panel visualizations, will be described below in the hierarchical order.

The following blocks or components may be expressed in interface 1700 as major navigation screens, for example, and may all be accessible from a home screen, page, or interface 1704: the stories screen 1706, the weather screen 1708, the media screen 1710, the properties screen 1712, the live streams screen 1714, and the reports screen 1716. The welcome block 1702 may enable both login and registration capabilities for new users, for example. Upon entry and validation of credentials, a user may be directed to the home screen 1704. The home screen 1704 may houses common actions and custom common actions for individuals and groups, for example, saved or associated with a specific user account. The stories screen 1706 may house all packaged content of various types and provides searches, filters, and sorts. The weather screen 1708 may include a custom package management provider tied to a properties and data feeds. The media screen 1710 may houses all images and video and provides searches, filters, sorts, etc. The properties screen 1712 may lists all existing brand properties and allows creation, searching, and editing of the properties. The live streams screen 1714 may list bundles of live running video by brand including one-off live feeds. The reports screen 1716 may provide access to analytics across properties and content.

The home screen 1704 may provide access to a user admin editing screen 1718, which may integrate with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and enable user creation and role management, for example, including access to various portions of system 100. Also accessible from the home screen 1704 is a create user dialogue window 1722 that enables a new user to be defined and roles to be assigned (e.g., providing similar functionality as same as assign roles panel 1720). A moderation editing screen 1724, also accessible from the home screen 1704, may enables workflow of many sorts across the system including UGC, comments, and publishing to be viewed, edited, etc.

The stories screen 1706 may provide access to a story editor screen 1726, which may be the default visual package editor that integrates media attachments. From the story editor 1726, an ownership panel 1734 may be accessible, which enables editors to view and specify package sources (e.g., with some set automatically). Also accessible from the editor 1726, a geolocation panel 1736 may specify the area of impact for a content package for use in geo-fencing. The story editor 1726 may similarly provide a tags panel 1738 that may show automatically derived and manually managed contextual tags for package indexing. The story editor 1726 may also provide a schedule panel 1742 that enables allow a package to be published and expired within a time limit. A media browser screen 1732, also accessible from the stories screen 1706, may enable advanced searching and attachment of media to any package from an asset repository. An alert editor screen 1748, also accessible from the stories screen 1706, may provide for creation of property-wide alerts, which may be stand-alone or as part of the package publication process. The bio editor screen 1750 may use custom package panels to support a custom biography package type (repeatable). The bio editor screen may also provide a bio info editor plug-in that enables custom biographical information to attach to a biography package (extensible).

In some aspects, a syndication panel 1740, also accessible from the stories screen 1706, may enable advanced searching and selection of sections across properties for publishing activities. A similarly accessed ownership panel 1734 may provide a reviewer the ability to enforces rights management before publication and enables overrides, for example, to control the routing of content to various properties. A version manager panel 1744 may show package content versions over time and enable reversions to previous states.

The weather screen or page 1708 may provide access to a variety of editing tools for weather based presentations. For example, a weather editor screen 1754 may provide a custom package editor tailored to support forecast data and galleries. A forecast editor plug-in 1756 may provide a visual daily forecast editor for managing ingested weather feed data manually.

A preview screen 1758, which may be accessible from the story editor 1726 and/or the bio editor 1750, may display multiple packages and section displays in-line with publishing processes or property management. A story preview panel 1760 may display a package as it will render and enable switching between multiple properties as applicable. A section preview panel 1762 may display promotion of a package as it will appear across multiple properties as applicable. A teaser manager panel 1764 may enable adding a reference or tailoring references in-line with a visual preview of the associated presentation. A staging site screen 1770, which may be accessible from the preview screen or component 1758, or from the property map screen or component 1789, may enable traversal of properties in the process of being created but not published. An editor bar 1768, which may also be accessible or viewable from the preview screen 1758, may enable producers to initiate editing actions from the live or staging property when logged in.

The media screen 1710 may provide screens or interfaces for editing images 1772, video 1774, and for video clipping 1776. The image editor 1772 may enable alteration of images and renditions of images for various channels during publishing. The video editor 1774 may enable viewing, editing meta-data, and poster frame selection during publishing. The video clipping editor 1776 may enable integrated video clip creation and alteration during publishing.

The properties screen 1712 may link to various other screens and interfaces for managing and configuring presentation of content of one or more properties at one time. For example, a property settings screen 1778 may be accessible from the properties interface 1712, and may provide for creation and editing of property settings based on brand template. These features may be further provided for by: a basic settings panel 1779 that manages URLs, brand name, icon, and configurable, requires settings by brand type at the high level; a theme settings panel 1780 that shows a visual preview of colors, logos, and other brand-level style guides for editing; an integrations panel 1781 that enables configurable integration points with external services like metrics and mobile applications; a source settings panel 1782 that provides white-listing and black-listing of content sources and definition of new sources as needed; and/or a social settings panel 1783 that connects the property with external social media channels as needed (configurable by brand template).

The property settings screen 1778 may also link to the property map screen 1789, which may provide for visually display and management of property structures and creation of presentations. These features may be further provided for by: a section page panel 1791 that enables configuration of a unique, usually discover-based destination or topic area for the brand; a content page panel 1792 that enables configuration of a type of package display presentation for the brand; a topic page panel 1793 that enables configuration of a presentation that dynamically discovers content based on passed in tag or tag; a alias page panel 1794 that enables configuration of a destination that points to another location inside or outside the brand; a SEO settings panel 1795 that enables alteration of the SEO settings for a given section for web-based presentations; a template selection panel 1796 that can be configured to apply a pre-defined (but sometimes partial) presentation to a property node; a link package panel 1797 that enables configuration specific package content to link to sections for display at run-time as needed; and a navigation (NAV) group manager panel 1790 that enables admins to organize property sections into specific sets for navigating properties.

The property map screen 1789 may also link to a page or presentation builder screen 1784, which provides visual editing of presentations and templates with metrics and content. The page builder screen 1784 may link to the following panels: a component selection panel 1785 that shows all published SDK components for the property channel; a component settings panel 1786 that enables admins to alter visual components easily (reacts to component code dynamically); and a filter manager panel 1787 that enables admins to alter content displayed in specific components in-line with visual preview.

The live stream screen 1714 may provide control and selection interfaces to better enable a user to manage live streaming content in the MIX platform 100. Form the live screen 1714, a live stream control panel 1788 may be accessible that enables selection, monitoring, and on/off switching of live streams by brand. A confidence stream control panel 1798 may provide viewing of constant live feed separate from approved content in 1788.

The reports screen 1716 may provide for viewing of metrics and analytics associated with performance of properties relating to viewership, CPM, CTR, etc., gathered by system 100, for example on a package, component, and other granularities. The report interface 1716 may provide access to metrics concerning secondary content or advertising, such as revenue generated by properties, etc. In one aspect, a sell through report screen 1799 accessible from the reports interface 1716, may provide a custom report showing advertising sell through rate reporting by property or property group.

It should be appreciated that interface 1700 is only given by way of example. Other configurations and implementations of a visual interface for managing and publishing content and digital media are contemplated herein.

9. Mix Platform Example Operation

FIG. 18 shows a flow block diagram of an example end to end operation 1800 of the digital media integration exchange system 100 of FIG. 1.

Certain embodiments of the content management or digital media integration exchange system 100 and methods are described above with reference to methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products that can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions can be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, mobile computing device, server, virtual server, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the acts specified herein to transform data from a first state to a second state.

These computer program instructions can be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to operate in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the acts specified herein. The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the acts specified herein.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, and steps have been described generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. The described functionality can be implemented in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the disclosure.

The various illustrative logical blocks and modules described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented or performed with a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. A general-purpose processor can be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor can be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor can also be implemented as a combination of computing devices such as, for example, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.

The blocks of the methods and algorithms described in connection with the disclosure can be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. A software module can reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of computer-readable storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to a processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium can be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium can reside in an ASIC. The ASIC can reside in a computer terminal. In the alternative, the processor and the storage medium can reside as discrete components in a computer terminal.

Depending on the embodiment, certain acts, events, or functions of any of the system and methods or processes described herein can be performed in a different sequence, can be added, merged, or left out altogether (e.g., not all described acts or events are necessary for the practice of the method). Moreover, in certain embodiments, acts or events can be performed concurrently such as, for example, through multi-threaded processing, interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processor cores, rather than sequentially. Moreover, in certain embodiments, acts or events can be performed on alternate tiers within the architecture. As descried herein, a deal may also be referred to as a deal proposal, with both terms indicating a deal being submitted by, for example a deal creator or vendor, in a deal promotion platform or system. Furthermore, as described herein, a package or a deal package may both describe a bundle of two or more deals.

With reference now to FIG. 19, a computer network or similar digital processing environment 1900 in which the MIX platform 100 and associated processes disclosed can be implemented. The MIX platform 100 and various processes described herein can also run on different architectures that include a LAN, WAN, stand-alone PC, stand-alone mobile device, a stand-alone, clustered, or networked mini or mainframe computers, etc.

FIG. 19 is representative of many specific computing arrangements that can support the system and method disclosed. In one embodiment, the software implementing the deal promotion system runs in the Linux® environment on an i686 architecture. In another embodiment, the software is implemented to run in other environments, such as Windows®, UNIX®, and to run on any hardware having enough power to support timely operation of software such as that identified in FIG. 19. In some implementations of the MIX platform, a Linux® distribution, such as, for example, Ubunutu®, is deployed on one or more server computers 104. In an alternate embodiment, one or more computers are deployed as virtual instances rather than physical computers.

A load balancing router 1906 can distribute traffic inside a firewall 1908 to and from distributed web servers 1910-a, 1910-b. In some deployments, these webservers 1910-a, 1910-b are distributed instances of an Apache web server. The distributed web servers 1910-a, 1910-b are communicatively coupled to computers/servers 1915-a, 1915-b hosting one or more persistent data stores. The data stores 1915-a, 1915-b can be distributed relational databases such as, for example, MySQL® storing primary and derivative data generated by the MIX platform 100/MIX service 135. The distributed database servers 1915-a and 1915-b may also communicate with each other via one or more database communication protocols. In addition, or alternatively, the distributed database servers 115 may host XML databases, object oriented databases, NoSQL database, and the like.

Client devices 160 can connect to a remote server infrastructure 1904 via a network 1920 over one or more communication protocols. All computers can pass information as unstructured data, structured files, structured data streams such as, for example, XML, structured data objects such as, for example, JSON objects, and/or structured messages. Client devices 160 may communicate over various protocols such as, for example, UDP, TCP/IP and/or HTTP. In some cases, Client devices 160 may communicate via a wireless connection with the network 1920.

In some embodiments, the wireless connection between one or more client devices 160 and the network 1920 (e.g., communication links 155, 165, and/or the medium upon which the GPI or state signals 170 and/or media/content is delivered from the master control 105 to virtual resources 115 and server 140) may implement or be part of a system that implements CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA, and/or other wireless communication technologies. A CDMA system may implement a radio technology such as CDMA2000, Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), etc. CDMA2000 covers IS-2000, IS-95, and IS-856 standards. IS-2000 Releases 0 and A are commonly referred to as CDMA2000 1×, 1×, etc. IS-856 (TIA-856) is commonly referred to as CDMA2000 1×EV-DO, High Rate Packet Data (HRPD), etc. UTRA includes Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) and other variants of CDMA. A TDMA system may implement a radio technology such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). An OFDMA system may implement a radio technology such as Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA), IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, Flash-OFDM□, etc. UTRA and E-UTRA are part of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) are new releases of UMTS that use E-UTRA. UTRA, E-UTRA, UMTS, LTE, LTE-A, and GSM are described in documents from an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP). CDMA2000 and UMB are described in documents from an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project 2” (3GPP2).

Client devices 160 and server computers 1904 provide processing, storage, and input/output devices executing application programs. Client computers 1902 can also be linked through communications network 1920 to other computing devices, including other client devices 160 and server computers 1904. In some embodiments, server computers 1915-a, 1915-b host and execute software implementing centralized persistent data storage and retrieval. The network 1920 can be a local area network and/or a wide area network that is part of a remote access network, a global network (e.g., the Internet), a worldwide collection of computers, and/or gateways that currently use respective protocols (TCP/IP, UDP, etc.) to communicate with one another. Multiple client devices 160 may each execute and operate instances of the applications accessing the deal promotion platform or system.

As described above, those of skill in the art will recognize that many of the components discussed as separate units may be combined into one unit and an individual unit may be split into several different units. Further, the various functions could be contained in one computer or distributed over several networked computers and/or devices. The identified components may be upgraded and replaced as associated technology improves and advances are made in computing technology.

FIG. 20 illustrates a single computing instance or node 2000, which may be or include aspects of one or more client devices 160, servers 140, encoder 110, or may support virtual resources 115. Each component of the node 2000 is connected to a system bus 2005, providing a set of hardware lines used for data transfer among the components of a computer or processing system. Also connected to the bus 2005 are additional components 2010 such as additional memory storage, digital processors, network adapters, and I/O devices. The bus 2005 is essentially a shared conduit connecting different elements of a computer system (e.g., processor, disk storage, memory, input/output ports, network ports, etc.) and enabling transfer of information between the elements. An I/O device interface 2015 is attached to system bus 2005 in order to connect various input and output devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse, touch-screens, displays, printers, speakers, etc.), for example to receive inputs into system 100. A network interface 2025 allows the computer to connect to various other devices attached to a network (e.g., system 100 of FIG. 1). A memory 2030 provides volatile storage for computer software instructions 2035 and data 2040 used to implement methods employed by the system disclosed herein. Disk or persistent storage 2045 provides non-volatile storage for computer software instructions 2050 and data 2055 used to implement an embodiment of the present disclosure. A central processor unit 2020 is also attached to system bus 2005 and provides for the execution of computer instructions.

In one embodiment, the processor routines 2035 and 2050 are a computer program product, including a computer readable medium (e.g., a removable storage medium such as one or more flash drives, DVDROM's, CD-ROM's, diskettes, tapes, etc.) that provides at least a portion of the software instructions for the system. A computer program product that combines routines 2035 and data 2040 may be installed by any suitable software installation procedure, as is well known in the art. In another embodiment, at least a portion of the software instructions may also be downloaded over a cable, communication, and/or wireless connection.

10. Digital Rights Management and Syndication

One aspect of the disclosure includes a process for facilitating distribution of content according to digital rights and restrictions associated with content.

FIG. 21 illustrates a process for facilitating digital rights management. Digital rights management is the controlling of digital content and its use, and may include using multiple parties and systems. Process 2100 may begin at step 2102, where an administrator may create or edit a property 460. Upon creating or editing the property 460, at step 2104 the administrator may enter allowed content sources. At step 2106 the administrator may also select blocked sources. After having entered allowed and blocked sources, at step 2108 the administrator may save the settings of the property to maintain a record of the allowed and blocked sources.

After the administrator has entered the allowed sources at step 2104 and/or has selected blocked sources at step 2106, the system 100 may at step 2110 match the entered and selected sources of the administrator to known sources. A database of known sources may be stored locally within the system 100 and/or on a remote server or system. If the system 100 determines at step 2112 that any of the allowed or blocked sources match any previously known source, then the administrator may return to step 2106 to continue to select blocked sources. If the system 100 determines at step 2112 that the allowed or blocked source does not exist as an already-known source, the system 100 may add at step 2114 the new source to the database of available sources if the new source is allowed. This way the system 100 may maintain a database of available sources. In some aspects, the system, at operation 2112 may check all or a subset thereof of previously known sources automatically. In some cases, at operation 2114, the system may enable definition of new sources as brands license the each new source.

Digital rights management process may also allow for a producer to create and edit packages. At step 2116, a producer may log into the MIX Platform 100. At step 2118, the producer may create a new package once in the MIX Platform 100. At step 2120, the producer may add manual content sources to the package.

A developer may also build a new feed adapter and declare a content source at step 2122. The developer may deploy and register feed adapters at step 2124. In response, the system 100 may enable the feed for use in feed content searches in step 2126. In step 2128, the producer may log into the MIX Platform 100. Once in the MIX Platform 100, the producer may at step 2130 select a feed to search within the MIX Platform 100. The producer may search within a feed for a particular type of content or format. At step 2132, the producer may find media or a content package for production, and at step 2134, the producer may select the found media or content package for production.

Once the media or content package has been selected at step 2134, the system 100 may invoke the feed adapter import process at step 2136. The system 100 may also invoke at step 2138 a feed adapter source analysis process to determine the source of the selected media or content. The system 100 may determine whether the source of the selected media or content is already known or if it is new. In the case of a new package source, the system 100 may add the source at step 2140. In some cases, the system may allow definition of new sources as feeds detect them.

Next the system 100 may import the package and/or media in step 2142. Once the package and/or media has been imported, the system 100 may stamp the package and/or media in step 2144 with the source that has been detected. Once the package and/or media has been stamped in step 2144 and once the producer has added any manual content sources in step 2120, the producer may target any property sections at step 2146. For example, the sections may define focus areas for the brand, such as news, sports, popular, featured videos, or the like.

Once the producer has targeted property sections, the producer may publish the package at step 2148. After the producer has published the package in step 2148 and after the administrator has saved any property settings in step 2108, the system 100 may check allowed and blocked sources against any known package sources in step 2150. If any of the known package sources match blocked sources, the system 100 may prompt the user to resolve exceptions to the digital rights management policy defined by the property settings saved in step 2108 or otherwise. The producer may reconcile the exceptions to the digital rights management policy and continue with the publishing of the package in step 2154. This may mean that the producer overrides the exceptions and/or modifies the publishing of the package.

While FIG. 21 provides an example of digital rights management, other ways of similarly managing digital rights are contemplated by the present disclosure.

FIG. 22 illustrates an example of a syndication process. In step 2202, a producer may select an existing published package. A producer may also prepare a package or an alert for syndication in step 2204. Once a package has been selected by the producer in step 2202 and/or prepared in step 2204, the producer may select a syndication operation in step 2206. The syndication operation may include the type of operation, timing, location, format, broadcast platforms, and the like.

Once the syndication operation has been selected in step 2206, the system 100 may check the package type for syndication allowances in step 2208. For example, the package type may have limitations for the brand or section which may prevent or at least partially restrict the syndication based on certain criteria. Thus, the syndication allowances may provide the criteria under which the package may be syndicated. The system may also check at step 2210 the current syndication settings for the package.

The system 100 may also display a list of brands and sections currently syndicating in step 2212. There may be no brands or sections syndicating at a particular time, in which case the system 100 may communicate that no brands or sections are syndicating. The producer may at step 2114 search for new brands and/or sections using meta-data associated with the package. The meta-data can concern the design and specification of the package and/or may concern the description of the content of the package. That meta-data may allow the producer to find other brands and/or sections based on similar or matching meta-data.

The system 100 may find matching brands and/or sections in step 2215 and may display them. The system 100 may also check for source conflicts and may show errors in step 2216. Based on the brands and/or sections that have been matched, and based on conflicts and errors determined, the producer may lock desired brands and sections in step 2218. Once the producer has locked desired brands and sections into the system in step 2218, the system 100 may ensure in step 2220 that these targets will not go away on any action except for a clearing action. The system 100 may save these locked brands and sections in a particular database and/or may include their locked status in their meta-data.

Once the producer has locked the preferred brands and sections in step 2218 and the system has made note of those preferences in step 2220, the producer may publish the story in step 2222. Publication may be customizable based on the platform, content, timing, and/or other like factors. The system 100 may also create separate reference objects 372 for every target section or brand as needed in step 2224.

While FIG. 22 provides an example of syndication, other ways of similarly syndication packages are contemplated by the present disclosure.

FIG. 23 provides an example of digital rights management screen presented to the producer during syndication. In particular, the screen shown in FIG. 23 provides the producer an ownership verification. Moreover, the screen shows property exceptions and content sources allowing the producer to override all, remove all, and/or make certain particular selections for each. The selections made may then be saved or canceled.

In some aspects, a system for enabling digital rights management from a single live produced video stream, for one or more content distribution partners, which may have sections of content distribution partners' streams that restricted for distribution replaced with non-restricted content, is described herein. This system may be designed to integrate in a live production environment, such as a NRCS system and playout devices or a manual toggle switch via a director or producer, for signaling an appropriate rights restricted segment of video. This single live produced video stream, including signaling, is then encoded and distributed via a CDN. The CDN will replace stream for content distribution partners based upon signaling and the distribution partners' property to ensure rights managed content is restricted from distribution.

FIGS. 24A through 24J illustrate an example sequence diagram for distributing syndicated content. In some aspects, a process for determining which content items to restrict based on syndication rights or other restrictions associated with one or more properties, such as digital properties, may include one or more of the following operations. In some aspects, the process may operate on live content, such that certain content may be restricted from distribution to certain channels or properties during the production of the content, e.g., as it is being modified on the fly for broadcasting. In other aspects, one or more aspects of the following process may be implemented on video-on-demand, or other non-live content. In some aspects, content produced by a first party, e.g., controlling the distribution of content, may not be associated with any restrictions. However, content provided by third parties may have restrictions/syndication rights associated with the content.

In some aspects, a pre-production stage may include the following operations. In order to prepare the newscast for live production, the producers, journalists and editors may interface with a newsroom computer system (NRCS/iNews) to create stories in a rundown. The process of creating the stories will create a video-id in the NRCS system. For stories that are comprised of rights restricted content, such as syndicated content from a third party, the producer, journalist or editor may mark an appropriate user interface field (e.g., embargo) indicating the video content is restricted against 3rd party syndication.

In some aspects, a pre-live production stage may include the following operations. Before the live production begins, a director may load the rundown in iNews Command, which provides a user interface for managing news playout based upon show rundown. The details of which will be described in greater detail below. Command may query the NRCS with the current loaded rundown for all stories. The NRCS may then return all stories in the rundown, and build the show rundown. Command may then load all video-id's into the Airspeed playout devices (content sources)

Live production may begin with the Master Control sending a roll signal to the Sealevel GPI interface connected to the DVEO encoder running the SD GPI Middleware (operation 4). (Items 5 and 6 are in this covered sequence activity). The SD GPI Middleware may detect the contact closure, indicating a roll, and issues a content_start command to encoder software (uplynk liveslicer) (operation 4.1). The encoder software may then begin encoding and uploading video segments to the Uplynk or other content delivery network (CDN) (operation 4.1.1).

The SD GPI middleware may then being to poll the NRCS system to query which rundowns are loaded into iNews Command (e.g. which shows are actively being produced via production control) (operation 4.2). The SD GPI middleware queries specific system folders of the NRCS to determine this information. This activity repeats at a pre-defined interval labeled “RXNet Monitor interval” time defined in minutes. This allows for new rundowns to be loaded in the NRCS and checked against DRM restrictions. The NRCS may respond with a full list of processes, including which rundowns are loaded into iNews Command (operation 4.2.1).

(TYPO—Labeled as 7) “Parse for rundowns in MONITOR”. The GPI middleware will then parse the process list and determine which applicable rundowns are loaded into iNews Command based upon a pre-defined pathing (RXNet city/station) filtering (operation 4.2.1.1).

(TYPO—Labeled as 8)—“Pull Monitored Show”. The GPI Middleware will perform full download of every rundown and every story that matches the pathing filtering. This activity repeats based upon a “RXNet Rundown Interval” time defined in seconds. This allows for shows to be modified during production. This list of stories will contain video-id's and DRM information, along with the full story data in NSML format (operation 4.2.1.2).

The RXNet may query the NRCS/Command server for every story (operation 4.2.2). NRCS/Command may in response return back each story (operation 4.2.3). The RXNet may return the story to the GPI Middleware (operation 4.2.3.1). (TYPO—Labeled 9) The GPI Middleware will then search for any applicable DRM fields, and if marked, append the video-id to a list for DRM checks of content sources (operation 4.2.3.2).

As illustrated in FIGS. 24A-24J, operations 5 and 6 corresponding to operation 4 described above, operation 7 to operation 4.2.1, operation 8 to operation 4.2.2, and operation 9 to operation 4.2.3.1.

Next, at operation 10, a 1st party stream viewer (e.g. non restricted property) may begin to view the live news stream via CDN path without rights restriction applied. A 3rd party stream viewer (e.g. with rights restrictions), at operation 11, may begin to view the live news stream via CDN path with rights restrictions applied. The GPICloud middleware may connect to the airspeed playout devices (content sources) and begin monitoring every content source for a matching video-id in playout status, at operation 12.

The director may fire a cue for a story without a video-id under embargo, at operation 13. iNews Command may begin playout of the video source by issuing a play command to the airspeed with a specified video-id, and this source is then taken to the live production stream, at operation 13.1 The GPICloud middleware may continuously poll each airspeed channel on each airspeed device, and may receive the current status (See supplemental notes Airspeed StatusInfo Payload Format, described below) (at operation, 14/13.1.1).

Next, at operation 15, it may be checked if Airspeed response contains an embargoed video id (ACTIVE=video-id) and the CTRL state is PLAY. This indicates that a video is currently playing out that must be marked for embargo restriction in the live stream. Next, proceed to operation 18 after a pre-defined delay (labeled as embargo delay ms) to account for any buffering in the encoding stream process.

If at operation 15, the result is negative, the process may continue polling this airspeed channel at operation 16. Next, the director may fire a cure for a story which contains content which is under embargo restrictions at operation 17. In some aspects, operation 17.1 may be similar to or include operation 13.1 described above.

Next, at operation 18, if the current video playing is determined to be restricted, “boundary” command may be issued to the Uplynk liveslicer with a payload label of “embargo”. This will mark a segment in the video stream, creating a new boundary and corresponding slice of video and metadata with the payload label. This logical boundary of the stream may be replaced or skipped via the CDN distribution point based upon the requested stream and applied boundary restrictions.

At operation 18.1, the CDN may persist the boundary segment and metadata payload label. For a live viewer of the 3rd party restricted stream, the CDN will replace a matching boundary segment with slate video slices, until the boundary segment is completed, at operation 18.1.1. Next, at operation 18.1.2, state may be monitored against airspeed for completion of boundary state. When the airspeed status no longer contains an active video-id in ctrl state of play, a command is sent to clear the boundary to the liveslicer. At operation 18.1.3, or as part of operator 18.1.2, when the boundary ends, the CDN will resume delivery of the manifest of the video stream at the termination of the boundary.

In some aspects, when content is restricted, for example, based on one or more syndication rights or restrictions associated with the content, a configurable delay may be employed before sending the signal, with a property restriction identifier, to restrict the content, for example, to adjust for encoding pipelines and buffering delays, mismatch, etc.

In some cases, the rundown of a live show may include a rough estimate of the content within the show, such that timing, order and other aspects of the show, as produced may differ from the rundown. In some aspects, polling the rundown may be performed periodically, according to a configurable amount of time, e.g., 10 s, 30 s, 1 minute, or longer.

FIG. 25 illustrates an example user interface that enables setting one or more GPI cloud configuration options, such as whether or not a content item is embargoed, the embargo delay, etc. It should be appreciated that FIG. 25 is only provided as an example, and that other configurable options, and other arrangements of selection items, etc., are contemplated herein.

FIG. 26 illustrates an example diagram of an encoder with associated states of various content, including a GPI-GPO hardware design that supports GPI triggers for roll/break and DRM manual restrictions. In some cases, the GPO may indicate encoder and embargo state for production personnel or for presentation on one or more user interfaces.

In some aspects, the INEWS Command user interface may provide one or more of the following features.

Flexible device integration: iNEWS Command is qualified to control a wide variety of video and graphics devices. Expanded graphics playout functionality provides an open platform for third-party graphics devices, allowing flexible workflow configurations.

Advanced playout capabilities: iNEWS Command provides accurate tracking of playlists with autocue and autocurser, just two of the many playout capabilities supported.

Eliminate system failure: eliminating a single point of failure within the system, iNEWS Command server features redundancy and mirrored or hot swap channel playout.

Flexible system integration: supports interactive news management systems as well as standalone playlists for linear playout. Shotboxes are utilized for non-linear and breaking news playout.

Powerful inventory management; browse, search, and rename assets on any device from any workstation with a powerful inventory panel. iNEWS Command supports metadata such as slugs and thumbnails for Avid Interplay and non-Avid asset management systems.

Flexible device triggering: multiple qualified platforms triggering playout of upcoming assets, such as keyboard, Xkeys device, GPI, touchscreen monitor, and tablet.

Media viewer: scrub video, trim, edit, and create sub clips. Graphics users can edit fulfillment data, set In/Out points for automated video triggering, and instantly see an updated thumbnail.

Touchscreen monitor support: get enhanced usability for touchscreen monitors with an improved workstation playout panel showing channel, thumbnails, clocks and transport controls.

Thumbnails: view thumbnails of videos and graphics on supported devices in the iNEWS Command playlist, shotbox, and media viewer.

Customizable user interface: iNEWS Command's extreme UI flexibility includes customizable transport control colors, docking panels, and customizable clocks.

While the disclosure has been described in terms of exemplary aspects, those skilled in the art will recognize that the disclosure can be practiced with modifications in the spirit and scope of the appended claims. These examples given above are merely illustrative and are not meant to be an exhaustive list of all possible designs, aspects, applications or modifications of the disclosure. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for distributing syndicated content, the method comprising: assigning a unique ID to a plurality of content items, wherein the unique ID of at least one of the plurality of content items is associated with one or more (3^(rd) party) property distribution restrictions; streaming in a video stream the plurality of content items to at least two properties; monitoring the unique IDs of the plurality of content items streamed in the video stream to detect the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions; and blocking distribution of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to the one or more properties concurrently with streaming the video stream, based on the one or more property distribution restrictions.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of content items is contained in a show rundown, wherein the video stream is produced from the show rundown, the method further comprising: modifying the show rundown during the airing of the video stream in real time.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein modifying the show rundown comprises at least one of modifying the order of one or more content items, adding a content item, deleting a content item, or changing the position of or more content items, or application of changes to one or more property distribution restrictions associated with the at least one content item.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: resuming streaming of the one or more content items after the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions is finished.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein monitoring the unique IDs of the plurality of content items streamed in the video stream further comprises: polling the rundown periodically; detecting the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions; and adding the unique ID of the at least one content item to an embargo list.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: during streaming of the video stream, monitoring the plurality of content items associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions of the video stream to determine at least one content source associated with at least one of the plurality of content items.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein monitoring the plurality of content items associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions of the video stream to determine at least one content source associated with at least one of the plurality of content items comprises: polling a playout device; and comparing the unique ID actively being played out on the playout device to the unique IDs on the embargo list; and based on the comparison, restricting streaming of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to the playout device.
 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: concurrently with restricting streaming of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to the playout device, monitoring the unique ID actively being played out on the playout device; determining that the unique ID actively being played out on the playout device has changed to a unique ID not on the embargo list; and based on the determining, resuming streaming of the video stream.
 9. The method of claim 6, wherein monitoring the plurality of content items associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions of the video stream to determine at least one content source associated with at least one of the plurality of content items comprises: monitoring the state of a restriction trigger, wherein the trigger is activated in relation to at least one content item of the video stream; and based on the monitoring, restricting streaming of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to third party properties.
 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising: concurrently with restricting streaming of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to the playout device, monitoring the state of the restriction trigger; determining that the state of the restriction trigger has changed to an allow state; and based on the determining, resuming streaming of the video stream.
 11. The method of claim 5, wherein restricting streaming of the least one content item comprises: sending at least one signal to begin restriction of the at least one content item, wherein the at least one signal comprises a boundary in the video stream associated with metadata indicating the at least one property distribution restriction.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions is associated with a third party syndication provider.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more properties comprises a produced video stream on a digital property.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein the video stream is adapted in real time, the adapting comprising: when the video stream is a live video stream, replacing the content item associated with the at least one property distribution restriction with a slate until the restriction is completed; and when the video stream comprises video-on-demand, omitting the content item associated with the at least one property distribution restriction from the video stream.
 15. The method of claim 5, wherein polling the rundown periodically comprises polling the rundown via a configurable unit of time.
 16. The method of claim 1, wherein the video stream comprises at least one of: a live video, video-on demand, or a single production feed video stream.
 17. A content distribution system, comprising; a first computer sub-system configured to assign a unique ID to a plurality of content items, wherein the unique ID of at least one of the plurality of content items is associated with one or more property distribution restrictions; a content delivery network, configured to stream in a video stream the plurality of content items to at least two properties; and a middleware component in communication with the content delivery network, configured to: monitor the unique IDs of the plurality of content items streamed in the video stream to detect the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions; and block distribution of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to the one or more properties concurrently with streaming the video stream by the content delivery network, based on the one or more property distribution restrictions.
 18. The content distribution system of claim 17, wherein the first computer sub-system configured to assign the unique ID to the plurality of content items provides a user interface for manual indication of the one or more property distribution restrictions.
 19. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions for distributing syndicated content, that when executed by one or more processors, configure the one or more processors to perform the following operations: assigning a unique ID to a plurality of content items, wherein the unique ID of at least one of the plurality of content items is associated with one or more (3^(rd) party) property distribution restrictions; streaming in a video stream the plurality of content items to at least two properties; monitoring the unique IDs of the plurality of content items streamed in the video stream to detect the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions; and blocking distribution of the least one content item associated with the one or more property distribution restrictions to the one or more properties concurrently with streaming the video stream, based on the one or more property distribution restrictions.
 20. A method for distributing syndicated content to multiple digital properties, the method comprising: associating one or more syndication targets with a content item, wherein the one or more syndication targets comprise at least one of a channel, a section of a property, a brand, or a property, and wherein the one or more syndication targets persist with the content item through one or more modifications of the content item; and routing the content item to the one or more syndication targets, wherein the one or more syndication targets are selected for routing using a filter.
 21. The method of claim 20, wherein the content item is associated with a package, and wherein the one or more syndication targets are also associated with the package.
 22. The method of claim 20, wherein the method further comprises: performing the one or more modifications to the content item.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein performing the one or more modifications further comprises at least one of: packaging the content item with at least one other content item; or updating the content item by adding, subtracting, or changing existing content from the content item.
 24. The method of claim 20, further comprising: associating at least one tag with the content item based on the one or more syndication targets.
 25. The method of claim 24, wherein routing the content item to the one or more syndication targets further comprises filtering a purity of content items based on the at least one tag.
 26. The method of claim 20, further comprising: modifying one of the one or more syndication targets to create one or more second syndication targets; and retaining at least the one or more syndication targets in a list separate from the content item.
 27. The method of claim 20, further comprising: associating the one or more syndication targets with a second content item.
 28. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions for distributing syndicated content to multiple digital properties, that when executed by one or more processors, configure the one or more processors to perform the following operations: associating one or more syndication targets with a content item, wherein the one or more syndication targets comprise at least one of a channel, a section of a property, a brand, or a property, and wherein the one or more syndication targets persist with the content item through one or more modifications of the content item; and routing the content item to the one or more syndication targets, wherein the one or more syndication targets are selected for routing using a filter. 